By Charles Gladden
BELMOPAN, Fri. Aug. 22, 2025
The People Living with HIV (PLHIV) program was launched on Thursday, August 21, by the Ministry of Economic Transformation (MET) and the Ministry of Human Development, Family Support, and Gender Affairs, with support from the National AIDS Commission (NAC).
The creation of the PLHIV is the result of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by those two ministries to provide nutritional support to persons living with HIV throughout the country. The program began on July 1, 2025, and will end on March 31, 2026.
“We are working towards increasing the adherence to their medication, and ensuring that they have proper nutrition, which is very important for anybody who is ill; and this is a way that we can support some people with monies to subsidize their nutritional package and ensure that they get the proper nutrition to ensure that they’re healthy [and can] remain productive citizens of Belizean society,” said Thea Garcia Ramirez, Minister of Human Development, Family Support, and Gender Affairs
“NAC is the organization that deals with that, and has as its task to ensure we have the medication, the adherence, and ensure that people living with HIV are not discriminated against; and to provide, by whatever means possible, for their integration into society,” she added.
A total of $108,000 will be distributed monthly to the Ministry of Human Development to provide a $300 monthly food package to thirty beneficiaries.
“We get referrals from civil society who will refer … they have the clients, they know who needs; and then they will send over the request, and we will just provide a disbursement of those funds. BFLA and GOJoven are the civil society organizations that will be doing the referrals,” Minister Garcia Ramirez mentioned.
The MOU will be in effect for one year, but there are plans to extend for up to two additional years as Belize continues to strengthen its national HIV response through sustainable, people-centered initiatives.
Minister Garcia Ramirez and Carlos Pol, CEO of MET, signed the MOU in Belmopan.
