Statement
UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS
09 June 2008
Excellencies,
Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished Delegates,
Colleagues and Friends,
I would like to thank you for coming together to accelerate progress in the fight against AIDS. Accelerated action is urgently needed to achieve our goal of universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. Time is of the essence if countries are to reach all, including the poorest and most marginalized, in the next two years. Your presence at this event shows your renewed commitment. I would like to call on you to do three things, which I believe are fundamental to an effective response.
First, we need to urgently scale up interventions for HIV prevention. Today, five people are newly infected for every two people who receive AIDS treatment. At this rate, we will never get ahead of the epidemic. A major scaling up of proven prevention interventions could cut the number of infections dramatically.
Second, we need to pay more attention to women and young people, especially those who are living with HIV, and engage them as experts in the response. Today, only 4 in 10 young people know how to prevent HIV infection and this is not good enough. To prepare for this meeting, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, brought together young people to hear their views. They called for greater engagement in plans, policies and programmes and a dramatic expansion of AIDS education and youth-friendly services. Let us work with youth to scale up the information and services they need.
Third, we need to integrate interventions for AIDS and sexual and reproductive health so that they are mutually reinforcing. The overwhelming majority of HIV infections are sexually transmitted or associated with pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Thus, integrated services are essential to meet the needs of women and couples. And to be effective, we must redouble efforts to address gender inequities.
Today, only one in three HIV-positive pregnant women has access to treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission. More than 25 years into the epidemic, every woman and girl should know how to prevent HIV infection. Every HIV- positive woman should have access to voluntary family planning. And every HIV- infected mother who is about to deliver should be able to prevent transmission to her child and receive life-saving therapy for herself.
As a co-sponsor of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNFPA is working with partners to scale up interventions for HIV prevention to achieve universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support.
* * *
