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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) presented its Sixth Replenishment Investment Case to donors and partners at a meeting held in New Delhi, India, on 8 February. The Investment Case calls for US$ 14 billion to be invested over three years to help save 16 million lives through programmes for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Global Fund estimates that investing today will cut the mortality rate for the three diseases in half and build stronger health systems by 2023. Full funding would enable the Global Fund to continue playing a critical role in the response to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, accelerating progress towards universal health coverage and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Only with a fully funded Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria can we reach the global targets set for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria,” said Tim Martineau, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS, Programme, ai. “UNAIDS is committed to continuing to work with the Global Fund to ensure that it meets its financial targets so that countries can end AIDS as a global health threat and save more lives.”

The Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment target of US$ 14 billion represents an increase of US$ 1.8 billion, or 15%, more than the US$ 12.2 billion raised during the Fifth Replenishment period.

UNAIDS will continue to strengthen its long-established partnership with the Global Fund to maximize the impact of the investments, accelerate inclusive people-centred responses and end AIDS as public health threat by 2030.

UNAIDS estimates that US$ 26.2 billion will be required for the AIDS response in 2020. In 2017, US$ 21.3 billion was available for the AIDS response in low- and middle-income countries, a shortfall of US$ 5 billion. UNAIDS urges both donors and funding from domestic sources to be scaled up to fill the gaps and end the HIV, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics by 2030 as part of Sustainable Development Goal 3.

Together, UNAIDS and the Global Fund have ensured that millions of people living with HIV have access to treatment and that the people most affected by the epidemic have the health and support services they need.

Faith-based organizations have long played a critical role in the response to tuberculosis (TB). Many faith-based health service providers have implemented effective TB/HIV responses modelled on decades of work on TB. Today, faith-based organizations are delivering effective, high-quality TB/HIV services that complement national public health programmes in the countries most affected by TB and HIV.

Successful TB/HIV responses address both the biomedical and the social determinants that underpin these illnesses, such as poverty, inequality, situations of conflict and crisis, compromised human rights and criminalization. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to infection and the impact of TB/HIV on their families. Because they have positions of trust at the heart of communities, faith-based organizations can provide services and support that extend beyond the reach of many public sector health systems.

To provide an opportunity to strengthen relationships and forge new partnerships, on 27 September the World Council of Churches–Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, in collaboration with UNAIDS, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the United Nations Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development, hosted an interfaith prayer breakfast on the sidelines of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America. Keynote speakers and table discussions focused on the outcomes of the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis, which took place on 26 September, and examined how the longstanding experience of faith-based organizations in responding to TB/HIV can support the new declarations agreed by Member States during the historic high-level meeting.

The participants included faith leaders and health service providers from different religious traditions. Survivors of multidrug-resistant TB brought a powerful sense of urgency and reality to the discussion. The participants renewed their call to national governments to not only maintain, but increase, support in order to end AIDS and TB as public health threats by 2030.

First announced during the 2003 State of the Union Address by the then President, George W. Bush, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2018. Over the past 15 years, PEPFAR has dramatically changed the landscape of the global response to HIV, and bipartisan support across successive administrations since its launch has continued to ensure that PEPFAR expands it work towards controlling the AIDS epidemic.

Launched with an initial budget of US$ 15 billion over its first five years, PEPFAR has gone on to commit US$ 70 billion to the AIDS response. The funding has had remarkable results: in 2017, PEPFAR was supporting 13.3 million of the 21.7 million people living with HIV on treatment, including 1 million children, and in May 2018 announced that more than 14 million were on treatment.

PEPFAR has funded major HIV prevention programmes. The preventative effect of voluntary medical male circumcision on HIV transmission has been ramped up by funding more than 15.2 million circumcisions since 2003. Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services have ensured that 2.2 million babies have been born HIV-free, while 85.5 million people have accessed HIV testing services, allowing the people taking the tests to start on treatment or access HIV prevention services to stay HIV-free.

PEPFAR’s work with children orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable by HIV resulted in more than 6.4 million children being supported by PEPFAR in 2017, while the PEPFAR DREAMS programme saw new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women drop by 25–40% in those locations in which the programme was implemented.

On 27 September PEPFAR published its 2018 progress report, showing the progress made one year into its 2017–2020 strategy. PEPFAR supports the AIDS response in 53 countries—of those, 13 are already on track to control their HIV epidemics by 2020, while many more could still do so through scaling up resources and policies to ensure access to HIV prevention and treatment services.

“The contributions of PEPFAR have transformed the lives of people living with or affected by HIV around the world,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “We are very proud of our longstanding partnership and look forward to continuing to work closely together to deliver results for men, women and children, particularly the most marginalized.”

A new US$ 30 million partnership to help end cervical cancer led by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the George W. Bush Institute and UNAIDS will accelerate life-saving efforts in eight African countries.

Studies show that women living with HIV are four to five times more likely to develop invasive cervical cancer. However, the disease is preventable through screening and early treatment of precancerous lesions. Early detection and treatment of cervical cancer can dramatically increase a woman’s chance of survival—women with preinvasive lesions have a five-year survival rate of nearly 100%.

Because of the high prevalence of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and because women in sub-Saharan Africa are not screened or treated as early or frequently as women in other parts of the world, cervical cancer remains the number one cancer killer of women in the region.

To address the disproportionate risk of cervical cancer among women living with HIV and the need for increased rates of screening and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, PEPFAR the George W. Bush Institute and UNAIDS recently announced a new partnership—the Partnership to End AIDS and Cervical Cancer—designed to effectively eliminate cervical cancer deaths among women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa within a generation. The partnership will build on successful efforts over the past seven years of the Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon initiative and, pending Congressional approval, will be supported by an initial investment of US$ 30 million from PEPFAR.

“When we confront suffering—when we save lives—we breath hope into devastated populations, strengthen and stabilize society, and make our country and the world safer,” said President George W. Bush. “This week, we are announcing the next phase of our partnership with the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and UNAIDS: a plan to effectively eliminate cervical cancer amongst HIV-positive women within a generation.”

The partnership will focus its work in eight sub-Saharan African countries where the burdens of HIV and cervical cancer are high—Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. There are about 6 million women living with HIV in those eight countries. More than 100 000 women are diagnosed annually with cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The partnership will allow us to screen for, and treat, precancerous lesions among women living with HIV like never before,” said Michel Sidibé, the Executive Director of UNAIDS. “The partnership’s new strategy, which includes cervical cancer screening every two years for women living with HIV over the age of 30 years, aims to reduce cervical cancer incidence by 95% among this population in eight sub-Saharan African countries.”

The partnership will engage with governments in each of the countries to ensure that women and girls living with HIV are a priority in national cervical cancer prevention and control programmes. It will also leverage the powerful advocacy of first ladies, ministers, civil society, global health leaders and funders to improve implementation efforts and speed progress against the goal of eliminating cervical cancer.

“Thanks to the generosity of the American people, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has saved the lives of millions of HIV-positive women around the world,” said Deborah Birx, United States Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. “We must ensure these same women—mothers, daughters, aunts, and grandmothers—who are living with HIV and thriving do not succumb to cervical cancer.”

The new partnership builds on the successful efforts of the Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon initiative. Since its inception in 2011, Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon and its partners have screened more than half a million women for cervical cancer in Botswana, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, treated almost 32 000 women for precancerous lesions and vaccinated almost 150 000 girls aged 9–13 years against human papillomavirus type 2.

First ladies across Africa are spearheading a campaign to stop children acquiring HIV, prevent AIDS-related deaths and keep mothers healthy across Africa.

The Free to Shine campaign was launched by the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) and the African Union on the sidelines of the 30th Ordinary Session of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was launched during OAFLA’s annual General Assembly, which this year included 20 first ladies from across Africa, joining under the theme of “Transforming Africa through prioritizing children, adolescents and mothers in the fight against HIV”.  

The Free to Shine initiative was inspired by the progress and commitment from across Africa on stopping new HIV infections among children and aims to build on this progress by uniting people and organizations at the local and global levels to advance progress in ensuring access to HIV services to end AIDS among children and keep mothers healthy.

The campaign’s goals include improving maternal and childhood HIV programmes across Africa by building networks and partnerships, advocating for domestic and global resource mobilization, raising awareness around HIV prevention and mobilizing support for childhood AIDS programmes in Africa by working with high-level international and regional bodies and forums.

The Free to Shine campaign, led by OAFLA and the African Union, is supported by UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, Abbott, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Development Programme and AIDS Accountability International.

New results from the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced on World AIDS Day 2017 show strong advances in scaling up HIV prevention and treatment.

UNAIDS recently reported that nearly 21 million people living with HIV are accessing antiretroviral therapy—more than half of the 36.7 million people living with HIV are now on life-saving treatment. PEPFAR’s latest data show that PEPFAR supported more than 13.3 million of those men, women and children.

PEPFAR’s new data also indicate that there have been significant declines in new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women. In the 63 districts of 10 African countries implementing PEPFAR’s pioneering DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe) public–private partnership, the majority (65%) of the highest HIV burden communities or districts achieved a greater than 25% decline in new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women. ‎Importantly, new HIV infections declined in nearly all DREAMS programme districts.

By the end of September 2017, PEPFAR had provided voluntary medical male circumcision to more than 15.2 million men and boys. This result was reached through the largest single-year increase (3.4 million) in new voluntary medical male circumcisions since the beginning of PEPFAR.

PEPFAR has supported more than 6.4 million orphans and other vulnerable children and their caregivers affected by HIV and has prevented HIV infection among 2.2 million babies born to women living with HIV.

The new data add to PEPFAR’s impact results released in the past year, which show that five African countries are approaching control of their HIV epidemics. They also highlight critical advances being made under the PEPFAR Strategy for Accelerating HIV/AIDS Epidemic Control (2017–2020), which was launched by United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the 2017 United Nations General Assembly.

GENEVA, 14 November 2017—UNAIDS welcomes the appointment of Peter Sands as the new Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund).

“The Global Fund is a critical partner for UNAIDS,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “Mr Sands has the experience, leadership and vision needed to do the job and I very much look forward to working with him to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.”

UNAIDS has worked closely with the Global Fund since its inception in 2002. UNAIDS leverages its relationships and partnerships to assist countries in securing Global Fund resources, implementing grant programmes and overcoming bottlenecks. The Global Fund, in collaboration with other donors and governments, secures the resources to implement effective responses to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

Together, UNAIDS and the Global Fund have ensured that millions of people living with HIV have access to treatment and that people most affected by the epidemic have the health and support services they need.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

The UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, has addressed the 43rd Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie on the centrality of the Francophonie in making progress towards the end of AIDS.

The assembly, which brings Francophone parliamentarians together annually to exchange views, learn about good practices and take a position on cross-cutting issues affecting the French-speaking world, met on 10 July in Luxembourg.

Nearly 600 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie and more than 20 presidents of parliamentary assemblies gathered for the event, which was held under the theme of “Linguistic diversity, cultural diversity, identities”.

The Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, has spoken out about the need for continued leadership in global health from the United States of America to end the AIDS epidemic. During a speech at the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) Capitol Hill Conference, Mr Sidibé said, “What scares me is the move to a conspiracy of complacency. People think that AIDS is done, that we can move on. Now is not the time to lose our momentum.”

Senior United States officials, researchers, implementers, policy-makers and advocates were present at the event, which was held to review the substantial progress in the response and what is required to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The conference, Making AIDS History: a Roadmap for Ending the Epidemic, was chaired by Susan Blumenthal, amfAR’s Senior Policy and Medical Advisor and former United States Assistant Surgeon General. Speakers acknowledged the strong bipartisan commitment and leadership of successive United States Administrations and the Congress, which have saved millions of lives and made it possible to begin envisaging a world without AIDS. It was noted that cuts to international assistance, multilateral organizations and United States global AIDS programmes would have irreversible and devastating consequences.

Deborah Birx, United States Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, presented data illustrating dramatic results, including progress towards reaching the 90–90–90 targets among adults in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe and corresponding declines in new HIV infections.

“It is remarkable what we have achieved, bringing together governments and communities, with the support of UNAIDS and collaboration with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria,” said Ms Birx. “These essential partnerships make hard-earned United States taxpayer dollars go so much further and amplify our results.”

Mr Sidibé emphasized that partnership and global solidarity are paying off—in both economic terms and in the number of lives that have been saved. “The generosity and compassion of the American people has helped us move from despair to hope,” he said.

Kenneth Cole, Chief Executive Officer of Kenneth Cole Productions, Chairman of amfAR and International Goodwill Ambassador for UNAIDS, referred to commitments made by governments to Fast-Track the response to the epidemic and said that strong, continued United States leadership is essential to seizing the moment and dramatically scaling-up access to HIV treatment and prevention services. “We are at a tipping point and tipping points can go one of two ways—we have to end up on the right side. We have come too far to see 35 years of hard won progress grind to a halt,” said Mr Cole.

UNAIDS is leading global efforts to end the AIDS epidemic and is working with countries, donors, civil society and partners to increase action and Fast-Track the response to HIV over the next four years to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. 

Since its establishment in 2003, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has saved millions of lives. In 2016, around 11.5 million people living with HIV had access to antiretroviral treatment through PEPFAR-funded programmes, including 1.1 million children. Nearly 2 million babies born to women living with HIV were born HIV-free, and 6.2 million orphans and other vulnerable children received care and support.

In addition, PEPFAR funding supported more than 11.7 million voluntary medical male circumcision procedures to help prevent HIV acquisition and one million adolescent girls and young women were reached through the DREAMS initiative in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

And PEPFAR is on track to continue to deliver yet more results. Through a series of consultations over the past three months, PEPFAR has completed planning for its 2017 funding cycle to support more than 30 countries through Country Operational Plans.

The final regional review meeting in the process—which involved around 250 partners, including senior government officials in implementing countries, civil society representatives and multilateral organizations—concluded on 29 April in Johannesburg, South Africa. UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé addressed the opening plenary meeting, underscoring the vital role of PEPFAR in accelerating country efforts to control their epidemics and advance towards the goal of ending AIDS by 2030.

PEPFAR’s investments in countries supports UNAIDS’ efforts to Fast-Track the response to HIV. The Fast-Track approach focuses on accelerating scale-up of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for the populations and locations most affected by the epidemic. The development and review of PEPFAR’s Country Operational Plans is a model for transparency, inclusion and country ownership, with senior government officials and people living with and affected by HIV involved in the process.

UNAIDS is a key partner, working closely with countries to leverage PEPFAR investments and accelerate progress towards prevention and treatment targets. Bringing together the diverse technical resources of the United Nations system, UNAIDS helps countries to strengthen data systems, focus national strategic plans, overcome bottlenecks to scale-up, and put in place an enabling policy and social environment for access to services, including by eliminating stigma and discrimination.