The management of HIV and AIDS must once again be a front burner issue in Barbados, says Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey.
As such, plans are afoot to expand the National HIV/AIDS Commission.
Speaking at the seventh annual HIV Research Symposium, which was held yesterday at the Radisson Aquatica as one of the initiatives to commemorate World AIDS Day, Humphrey said he was concerned that stigma still remains one of the biggest challenges in managing the disease.
“We must restructure the Commission because things have changed and times have changed. I do not want to convey to anybody that the Commission is going to get smaller; in fact, the opposite is true. As we now lead in this fight against HIV and AIDS, the unit must become bigger, we need more staff and we need to do more things and we need to get focus back onto this HIV fight,” he said. (CLM)
