"I am sure that by taking concrete actions, we in Indonesia can achive the global and national targets," the minister told ANTARA here last weekend.
Minister Agung Laksono had participated in the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS which concluded in New York on June 10, 2011.
At the meeting, countries agreed to advance efforts towards reducing sexual transmission of HIV and halving HIV infection among people who inject drugs by 2015.
They also agreed to push towards eliminating new HIV infections among children in the next five years.
Leaders pledged to increase the number of people on life saving treatment to 15 million and to reduce tuberculosis related deaths in people living with HIV by half in the same time period.
Minister Agung said that the country would be achieve the new targets if every region cares about the AIDs/HIV problem.
He pointed out that number of AIDs/HIV cases in Papua is very high, but there are other regions with small number of AIDS/HIV cases because the regions manage to control it well.
Agung said Indonesia has achieved significant progress in fighting against the disease, thanks to the funding mechanism, which is currently 70 percent from the domestic source and 30 percent from overseas sources including the Global Fund.
The three-day UN high level meeting attended by around 3,000 participants, produced a Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS: "Intensifying our Efforts to Eliminate HIV/AIDS".
The bold targets come at a time when international assistance for the AIDS response has dropped for the first time since 2001. Member States agreed to increase AIDS-related spending to reach between US$ 22 billion and US$ 24 billion in low- and middle-income countries by 2015.(*)
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Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
