Leaders of the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS response Programme (UWIHARP) attended its first Business and Scientific meeting from September 12 – 13. Members of UWIHARP from all three campuses reported on what had been accomplished so far in the UWI’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean region.
UWIHARP is part of the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against AIDS(PANCAP) and is collaborating with other regional agencies to strengthen the response to HIV/AIDS across the region. Several of these agencies were represented at the Meeting namely Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, United Nations AIDS, United Nations Development Programme, Caribbean Regional Network of Seropositive Persons and Caribbean Health Regional Council. The addition of a Scientific day was aimed at the sharing of Research being done in HIV/AIDS. The main mandate of UWI under the CARICOM/European Union Strengthening the Institutional Response to HIV AIDS and Sexually Transmitted diseases in the Caribbean project is curriculum development, remodeling or developing curricula in all disciplines to produce graduates who are more sensitive to issues related to HIV/AIDS and who are better equipped to play a major role in behaviour change. UWIHARP has also been mandated to spearhead economic impact studies in several countries including Guyana, Surinam, Barbados, Haiti and the Bahamas. These studies will assist National programmes in adjusting their economies for the progressive changes as the epidemic unfolds.