(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas of St. Kitts and Nevis told media representatives in Barbados that more CARICOM Member States needed to have access to the US President’s Fund for HIV/AIDS.

Prime Minister Douglas who holds the portfolio among CARICOM Heads of Government, for Human Resource Development and Health including HIV/AIDS, told the media during a press conference at the Barbados Hilton Hotel where CARICOM Heads of Government are holding their Twenty-Eighth Regular Meeting, that currently, of the Members States of CARICOM, only Guyana and Haiti could access the Fund. He reported however, a “breakthrough” with regard to accessing the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS for those “middle-income” countries of CARICOM, which have had difficulty to-date accessing fund for HIV’AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Prime Minister Douglas said that the Meeting took advantage of the presence of Representative Charles Rangel, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the United States Congress to urge greater access to the President 's HIV/AIDS grant by CARICOM Member States, especially those which have been considered “middle-income”.

The Prime Minister lauded the presentation of Professor Sir George Alleyne which urged Heads of Government to adopt and embrace a wider interpretation of treatment of Functional Cooperation, with high priority placed on human and social development; specifically Health and Education. He said that Heads of Government looked specifically at the charge from the Commission on Health and Development to identify and respond to the problem of non-communicable diseases, NCDs, which are “creating havoc” in our Community’s populations. “Increasingly”, the Prime Minister said, “our people are dying from diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease, related problems of obesity and smoking”.

He reconfirmed that there will be a Meeting of Heads of Government of CARICOM on 14 September 2007 in Trinidad, on non-communicable diseases, to craft a regional strategic framework and plan of action to address this growing problem of NCDs.

The Meeting of Heads of Government concludes on 4 July, CARICOM Day.