Vice President John Mahama is pushing for Western nations to maintain their support for Ghana's campaign to combat HIV/AIDS. In an interview with Joy News on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly's High-Level meeting on HIV, the vice president said the global financial crisis has resulted in a reduction in funding on anti-HIV campaigns. He said the government has already drawn up a supplementary budget to sustain the national AIDS Control Programme. But he says more support is needed. AIDs campaigners are exploring new strategies developing countries can adopt to advance the fight against HIV/AIDS in the face of declining world support. The UN General Assembly says this is the surest way developing countries can continue to make progress in the fight against the disease; considering the current global economic crisis which has affected the release of funds by donor countries. Vice President John Mahama who is attending the meeting told journalists the Ghanaian government was determined to improve on the availability of anti-retroviral drugs to affected persons. Another target of the government of Ghana, he said, was to achieve “virtual eradication of mother-to-child-transmission of the disease.” “We have a budget over the next five years of almost $900 million and when we looked at the entire budget and looked at the commitment we had and how much government was willing to give, we realized that there will still be a significant shortfall of anything in excess of about $400 million,” he said. That, the Vice-President said, requires prioritising in order to achieve the most important targets. Source: Joy News/Ghana