World AIDS Day always provides an important opportunity for reflection. As we look back over the last quarter of a century, the speed at which AIDS has spread across the world is astonishing and horrifying. As progressives we are called to act, to fight HIV and AIDS at home and abroad.
I am proud of the UK government’s history of international leadership in this area. Through our Presidencies of the G8 and EU in 2005, the UK led the way in galvanising international commitment, increasing funding, and achieving better results in the global fight against HIV and AIDS. For example, since 2004, 20 times more people have access to life-saving treatment. Since 2003 the price of first line AIDS drugs has halved. And there are now three million people on anti-retroviral treatment, compared to just 100,000 people who received treatment back in 2001.
This is important progress. However, with more than 33 million people around the world living HIV, and fewer than a third of those who need anti-retrovirals having access to them, the scale of the challenge remains vast. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most impacted by HIV/AIDS: AIDS is its leading cause of death; and an estimated 11.4 million children across the region have been orphaned by AIDS.
In June of this year I launched the government’s new strategy Achieving Universal Access. This builds on the UK’s international leadership, outlining practical steps to improve the situation in countries across the world and emphasising the need to tackle the causes not just the symptoms. It also emphasises the need to support the most vulnerable, especially women and children.
This policy leadership is also backed by financial support. The UK is the second largest contributor to HIV and AIDS, globally. Underpinning our new strategy is a commitment to £6 billion over seven years, to strengthen health systems and services in developing countries. This investment is in addition to the UK’s £1 billion commitment to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Our investment will help meet the urgent shortfall of some 800,000 health workers in the 36 worst-hit African countries and will enable us to work with developing countries to improve antenatal care to prevent HIV from being passed on to babies in the womb. It will also support the integration of health systems and services in developing countries ensuring that we continue to do more to link up different health services, to reflect the reality of peoples’ needs within those countries.
The truly terrible spread of AIDS shows just how interconnected our lives are. It has reached every corner of the globe, bringing destruction to lives and communities on all continents. In response to the challenge we face we must work together – united by a common cause – to ensure that our goal of universal access to prevention, treatment and care is achieved. We must continue to work to deliver on our commitments and provide the interconnected response that is needed in this interconnected world.