In a joint mission, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot and Dr Tadatakai Yamada, Executive Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Programme visited Botswana to gain a shared perspective of the progress and challenges facing the country in its AIDS response. With 25% of adults aged 15-49 estimated to be living with HIV, Botswana has one of the world’s highest HIV prevalence rates, but the country has made significant progress in its response to AIDS, especially in providing treatment. Meeting with various officials in the country, Dr Piot praised this progress and stressed the importance of scaling up comprehensive HIV prevention.

The UNAIDS Global Staff Meeting took place at the Palexpo in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1st to 5th October. The overall goal of the Global Staff Meeting is to put both the organization at large, and all staff in a position to respond effectively to the challenges and expectations of UNAIDS constituents in scaling up global and country level response. The agenda of the meeting included among others, skills building workshops, group discussions, panelists’ reflections, conferences as well as feedback and evaluation of all the activities.

UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot participated in a forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., discussing the United States’ important role in the global AIDS response and the upcoming reauthorization of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

During his speech, Dr Piot noted the leadership role that has been played by the United States in addressing the global AIDS epidemic, and called on the country to maintain and strengthen this commitment. “We must accelerate our efforts, and broaden them—by bolstering our long-term, sustainable efforts to fight this disease,” he said.

Up to half of all deaths in people living with HIV are caused by tuberculosis - Yet TB is both preventable and curable.

In the run up to the International Women’s Summit, twenty five members of the GCWA Leadership Council gathered in Nairobi for their 3rd meeting since the creation of the Coalition in 2004. Representing all regions of the world, participants came together to do more to address the critical importance of gender dynamics in the AIDS epidemic and women’s needs in the response. Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director who took part in the meeting, congratulated the work done over the past year and called on the Leadership Council members to go beyond analysis and to find concrete solutions that work for women.

UNAIDS is guided by a Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) which serves as its governing body. The PCB has representatives from all regions of the world, the UNAIDS Cosponsors, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including associations of people living with HIV. This meeting addresses UNAIDS role in strengthening global coordination on AIDS and development of the Programme Coordinating Board. The 20th Programme Coordinating Board established a process to elaborate further on UNAIDS' role in strengthening Global Coordination on AIDS, and how to develop the UNAIDS' Programme Coordinating Board into a more relevant and effective policy-making Board.

The conference aims to serve as a platform for deliberations on the key contentious issues relating to HIV prevention, treatment and care. The AIDS response in South Africa has been given a boost with the successful endorsement of two key processes: the restructured South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) and a new national AIDS plan which will guide South Africa’s response to AIDS over the next five years.“If South Africa can achieve its aims, the country will be well on the way to leading Africa into a new phase in the AIDS response,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, at the opening of the third South African Aids conference in Durban.

As part of the 61st session of the General Assembly, UN Plus – the UN system-wide group of staff living with HIV – met with the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to brief him on the key achievements of the group since its inception in March 2005 and to discuss the opportunities and challenges that UN positive staff face at work. During the meeting, a delegation of UN Plus members presented the Secretary-General with specialized position papers covering four main issues of concern: stigma and discrimination, confidentiality, medical insurance, and travel restrictions and mobility.

The UNAIDS Executive Director stressed that AIDS has turned into one of the most serious challenges our planet has ever faced, ranking with climate change, international terrorism, and the threat of nuclear war as “one of the defining issues of our time.” “AIDS is forcing us to adopt new approaches, look at things differently, and transform the way we do things,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot as he gave the 2007 Payne Lecture at Stanford University on May 9.

At the launch of the WHO Global Tuberculosis Control Report, UNAIDS Executive Director highlighted the need for TB and HIV communities to scale up collaboration if the goal of universal access to quality TB and HIV prevention, diagnostic, treatment and care services is to be achieved. The report, released by WHO, indicates that the worldwide TB epidemic has leveled off for the first time since it was declared a public health emergency in 1993. But despite signs that the epidemic may be slowing, there are still major impediments to rapid progress against TB - prominent among them being the lack of investment, uneven access to diagnosis and treatment within countries, the emergence of XDR-TB, the inextricable links between HIV and TB and the ageing population.