WHO - World Health Organization

03/24/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/24/2021 10:56

Director-General's introductory message at the special session of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board

Your Excellency, Dr Kalumbi Shangula, Minister of Health and Social Services for Namibia

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS,

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

First of all, I would like to recognize Namibia for its leadership in the negotiations on the Global AIDS Strategy, and for its work with Australia co-facilitating this year's high-level meeting on HIV and AIDS.

WHO is pleased to endorse the Global AIDS Strategy for the next five years. We support its framing, ambition and content. And I join Wynnie in asking Member States to endorse the strategy with consensus.

It is clear that the world needs to intensify efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. This is especially true given the disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

And on World TB Day, we must remember that of the 700 thousand deaths from HIV last year, one third were due to co-infection with TB. These deaths are entirely preventable.

We have the guidelines and tools, and now we have a new strategy that will set the tone towards eliminating these new infections and reducing the burden of AIDS.

This strategy provides an important multisectoral framework to accelerate progress towards our 2030 targets.

I welcome the strategy's focus on intersecting inequalities to address the remaining challenges of ending AIDS.

The strategy describes the interventions that require urgent prioritization over the coming five years and the communities where efforts should be targeted, including key populations, women and girls, and the millions of people living with HIV who are still unaware of their HIV status.

It outlines the importance of ensuring that HIV prevention efforts reach all people from key population groups, including men who have sex with men, transgender people, people who inject drugs and sex workers and their clients - all of whom are at higher risk of exposure to HIV than other groups.

And it highlights the need to focus on other priority populations including adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa, and children and adolescents who still lack opportunities to access the dedicated services they need.

The Strategy inspires an ambitious vision for ending gender inequalities and realizing human rights - including the right to health, calling upon all partners and stakeholders in the HIV response in every country to transform unequal gender norms and end stigma and discrimination.

And it calls for better data to identify the gaps we are facing, and stronger links between community-led responses and primary health care needed to address them.

I would also like to express my personal thanks and admiration to the many people living with HIV who have championed the cause for decades, including members of the PCB NGO delegation.

The Global AIDS Strategy, and its 2025 targets, will help align the work and strategies of co-sponsors and partners. For example, WHO plans to develop a global health sector strategy on HIV for 2022 to 2030.

Finally as we commemorate 25 years of the UNAIDS Joint Programme we recognize that it is the member states, communities and partners - including you, PCB members and observers, that help ensure we continue to leverage the capacities and expertise from across our agencies in support of HIV goals.

WHO remains strongly committed to UNAIDS, the implementation of the strategy and to the overall HIV response.

I wish you a productive discussion.

Thank you.