Children and aids newsletter

Dr. Paul de Lay, Director of the Department of Evidence, Monitoring and Policy, UNAIDS, highlighted the importance of the Global Partners Forum as the global response to the AIDS epidemic enter into a new phase – towards a long-term, forward looking response to a long-term problem. He underscored that while fewer people are being infected due to scaling up of prevention efforts and fewer people are dying as a result of the scale up of treatment, the epidemic is not over in any part of the world. And while encouraging results are visible in many areas, we will only be able to make a real impact if we address children's issues, improved partnerships and strong political leadership together with better data to measure the impact of the epidemic on children. Dr. de Lay called for a “life-cycle approach” and locally specific responses to the diverse epidemics within countries and regions. He also stressed the importance of addressing stigma, discrimination, homophobia, gender inequality and involvement of men, adolescent sexuality, transactional sex, social protection mechanisms and transfers for families, and prevention work with families.
Singer-Songwriter and HIV and AIDS activist Annie Lennox made a strong call to action reminding participants that the world should be “outraged” by the scope of the problem and the fact that we have not yet been able to respond appropriately to HIV as a human rights' issue. She underscored her hope that the Fourth Global Partners Forum “is not another talking shop” event but will “identify blueprints that work” and can be translated into action. She expressed the need for all actors in the international community to come together as ONE body to respond to the pandemic to ensure that people worldwide can live a life free of poverty and disease.