Today, on World AIDS Day, we are called upon to be leaders in the fight against AIDS. Where there is strong and committed leadership, the response is more effective.

Today, on the 20th World AIDS Day, we are again beseeching leadership to ‘Stop AIDS and keep the promise.’ We asked them to do so last year, and we are asking them to do so again. Although much has been done since the last World AIDS Day, AIDS clearly has not stopped. Stopping AIDS is the ultimate measure of progress in the AIDS response, but we must remember that it is not the only one.

Today is a fitting time to acknowledge and celebrate the leadership of thousands of women and girls all over the world who, on a daily basis, take on the challenges of the AIDS epidemic with courage and conviction.

The World AIDS Campaign has selected “leadership” as the 2007 World AIDS Day theme highlighting the need for innovative and visionary leadership in response to the epidemic. It calls on all of us to renew our commitment at the individual, family, community, national and international level to support empowering leadership on AIDS.

The theme of this World AIDS Day is leadership. Without it, we will never get ahead of the epidemic.

Today, millions of people around the globe are marking the 20th World AIDS Day. For some, this may be the only day in the year they think about AIDS. For many, however, AIDS is part of daily life.

As communities gather to mark World AIDS Day, and governments take stock of the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is urging that more attention be paid to the fundamental connection between hunger and health, which lies at the heart of the pandemic.

On 7 November 2007 at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) meeting in Seattle, NIH, HVTN and Merck released updated results based on post hoc analysis of data from a large-scale STEP trial with a Merck candidate vaccine (MRK-Ad5).

The United Nations System Chief Executive Board Meeting on 27 October under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, expressed its serious concern over the increasing number of violent attacks against humanitarian workers and other UN staff operating under the auspices of the United Nations in various regions of the world.

AIDS, a disease which was not even known a quarter of a century ago, is now the fourth leading cause of death in the world. Today, approximately 40 million people are living with HIV, and in every region of the world, the proportion of women among those who are becoming newly infected with HIV is increasing.