Launch of the 2006 Global AIDS Report

Thank you for joining us today. As Peter has said, we are making progress, but gaps remain. I will talk about HIV prevention.

Prevention remains our first and most effective line of defence—indeed, prevention is for life. In countries where HIV prevalence is declining among young people, there is behaviour change, comprehensive condom programming and empowerment of women. This is encouraging proof that prevention works and saves lives. But women still remain disproportionately vulnerable and greater efforts must be made to give them methods of prevention they can control. Last year, more than 4 million people were newly infected. So clearly we need to do more.

Allow me first to talk about the prevention successes:

• In the past five years, the number of people using HIV testing and counselling services quadrupled…from roughly 4 million persons to 16.5 million.

• More and more schools are now providing AIDS education…In 58 countries reporting data, 74 per cent of primary schools and 81 per cent of secondary schools provide AIDS education.

• And in six hard-hit African countries, there was a decline of 25 per cent or more in HIV prevalence among 15-24-year-olds in urban populations (Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe).

• In Kenya, Zimbabwe and urban areas of Burkina Faso and Haiti, favourable trends in prevalence are attributed to increased condom use and delayed sexual debut.

Secondly, we know that as we scale up treatment, we need to scale up prevention. HIV prevention must be at a coverage, scale and intensity to reach a critical mass.

Thirdly, we must approach prevention in a comprehensive manner based on human rights and scientific evidence of what works. The reality is that it is not as simple as ABC. Prevention must come in a comprehensive package, which includes:

• Abstinence or delaying the age of the onset of sexual activity;

• Fidelity or reducing the number of partners;

• Comprehensive condom programming;

• Voluntary testing and counselling;

• Harm reduction for drug users, and

• The prevention and treatment of other sexually transmitted infections.

And fourthly, we know that we must do more to prevent rising rates of HIV infection in women and young people. Today, only one in three young men and only one in five young women can correctly identify ways of preventing HIV infection. This is unacceptable.

Young people tell me, “Adults say we are too young to know; we say we are too young to die.” Clearly, greater prevention efforts are needed for and with young people so that they can protect their health and their futures.

The same is true for women. Female HIV infections are on the rise in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America and this means that more babies will be born with HIV, more mothers will die and more children will be orphaned unless urgent action is taken. In the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa, more women than men are currently living with HIV and the consequences are devastating. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly three out of four young people living with HIV are female. In the era of HIV/AIDS, ‘til death do us part’ has new meaning. Marriage is not a safe haven and fewer than 10 per cent of pregnant women know their HIV status.

More money than ever before is funding the response to AIDS, but far more needs to go into strategies and programmes that benefit women.

In line with the UNAIDS Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, we must do more to help women to be SAFER:

S for Sexual and reproductive health

A for Access to prevention, treatment, care and support

F for Female-controlled methods, including female condoms and the development of microbicides

E for Empowerment and Education, and

R for Rights—when the human rights of women are promoted, protected and fulfilled, women are less vulnerable to HIV infection.

I would also like to talk about sex work, which is a component of women and AIDS. There is now agreement among all UNAIDS cosponsors on a comprehensive strategy for HIV prevention in relation to sex work, which should lead to greater progress. We see this issue as more than just the prevention of HIV transmission among a high-risk group; it is also an issue of human rights. These women have the right to options in their lives before they enter the trade, while they are in it and certainly after they leave it, when they so decide. The rights to education, health and income are basic human rights of which many women are deprived. Poverty, trafficking and violence drive women into the sex trade. Therefore, by providing support to women to have other work options in their lives, we shall be promoting their basic human rights. And scaling up responses for all high-risk groups cannot wait.

So, we must act now and scale up a comprehensive response that addresses the multiple needs of all.

In conclusion, I would like to stress that in the response to AIDS, we need less talk and more action. We don’t need more global commitments or new targets. We need stronger leadership. As Peter said, we need to make the money work. We need to work more with communities and people living with HIV and AIDS. We need better implementation and stronger results.

Thank you.