Access Denied Report
All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS
Editor for the report, November 2014,
Five years have passed since the APPG’s Treatment Timebomb report was published. Since then the AIDS response has moved on considerably with a decrease of 35% in AIDS-related deaths since 2005 and a vast improvement in access to first line treatment in LMICS. However, we should not allow these positive figures to mask the alarming truth that 1.6 million people died from AIDS-related causes in 2012.
We have reached a crossroads in the AIDS response. Great progress has been made over the last five years; however, international aid and public interest in HIV and AIDS is diminishing. The World Health Organization (WHO) has changed its guidelines on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, thus making the 2011 UN General Assembly declaration to reach 15 million people with ARV treatment by 2015 appear somewhat unambitious. Under the new guidelines the estimated number of people now eligible for treatment is around 28.6 million.
Underpinning the changes in WHO guidance is increased scientific understanding of HIV. We now know, for example, that starting treatment earlier saves lives and, thanks to ground-breaking research published since the first Treatment Timebomb report, we now have proof that treatment is highly effective at preventing transmission of the virus. This new tool, combined with improved targeting of a range of effective prevention interventions, means that we could significantly reduce the number of new cases of HIV by scaling up our response. But, despite our greater understanding of what is needed to finally bring the epidemic under control, political and financial momentum are sadly lacking. According to figures from the United Nations Programme on AIDS and HIV (UNAIDS), international donor funding for the HIV response is stagnating with funds remaining largely the same since 2008. With the post Millennium Development Goals currently under negotiation, this is a crucial moment to reassess what is needed at a global level to ensure we confine AIDS to the history books.
Read the full report at http://www.appghivaids.org.uk/reports/2014/access14.html
