The Government has received financial commitment totaling 97.77 million dollars from partners, to among others, intensify efforts at improving the prevention levels of mother-to-child transmission of HIV across the nation.

The financial commitment is also to strengthen HIV coordination at the decentralized level through improved capacity, and financing of the regional technical support units. It is also to improve the quality of HIV data for programming.

Dr Angela El-Adas, Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, said this at a signing of aide memoire between the funding partners and the government to support the implementation of an effective national response to HIV and AIDS.

The signatories to aide memoire include Dr El-Adas, Mrs Mona Helen Quartey, Deputy Minister of Finance, Ms Susan Ngongi, United Nations Resident Coordinator, and Mr Frank Boateng, Chairman of the Country Coordinating Mechanism of the Global Fund.

The rest are Dr Celia Woodfil, United States Government Country Team Chairperson, Mr Siegfried Leffler, Country Director, German Development Corporation and Mr Shigeru Umetsu, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan.

Dr El-Adas said the signing of the agreement was necessitated by a successful partnership forum and business meeting held on November 13 and 14 and agreed priorities for 2015 and commitment made by the funding partners.

She said the aide memoire identified the priorities for 2015 as interventions for targeting men and women engaged in casual heterosexual sex, and in stable heterosexual couples who account for the majority of HIV infections, the youth and persons with disabilities, among others.

Dr El-Adas said the priorities also involved mobilizing resources to ensure that the local production of antiretroviral drugs for persons living with HIV becomes a reality and to strengthen the local pharmaceutical base towards World Health Organization prequalification.

Mrs Quartey thanked the funding partners for their continuous financial support, and pledged that the country would use the monies for its intended purposes and address HIV-related stigma and discrimination.