Clegg sets sights on AIDS free world as Global Fund stops new grants

Diarmaid McDonald

Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, used his World AIDS Day message to champion the advances the UK has helped to deliver in the global effort to tackle HIV which mean we can now set our sights on bringing an end to AIDS. But the consequences of a cash crisis at the Global Fund are dominating activists’ thoughts on December 1st.

Following the announcement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in November that an AIDS-free generation is now a US Government priority, the Deputy PM argued that recent developments – in May HIV treatment was proven to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus by 96% – mean we have, “never before been in this position where we have the potential to turn the tide of the epidemic.”

He urged reflection on the successes in the response and ambition for the future saying, “let’s set our sights on a world free finally of HIV.”

This optimism is borne of the latest science and a new UNAIDS paper which plots a course to a fading epidemic and steadily reducing costs by 2020 if we scale up our investment in effective interventions in the short term.

However, the jarring reality of developments at the Global Fund mean that fear is growing of a stalled AIDS response as lack of donor funds has forced the Fund to cancel all new programmes to tackle AIDS, TB and Malaria until 2014. The Global Fund is responsible for around half of all HIV interventions across the developing world and the decision will put thousands of lives at risk.

AIDS activists from around the world united on World AIDS Day behind a call to action demanding donors step up and provide the cash needed to allow the Fund to continue scaling up HIV prevention, treatment and care services around the world.

Setting the clock ticking on the 1^st of January, they are giving world leaders 200 days to save the Global Fund and the Millennium Development Goals on Health in time for the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC in July.

Stop AIDS Campaign coordinator Diarmaid McDonald urged the UK to show leadership,

“The government may not be the most culpable in this crisis, but now more than ever we need their strong global leadership to help resolve it. The UK needs a thriving Global Fund to deliver on its promises to tackle HIV, Malaria, TB and maternal and child health.

“Donors’ failure to deliver on their promises means that the Fund is having to slam on the breaks for two years, just when we should be accelerating towards the targets due in 2015. The UK led the world in securing a fantastic increase in funds for life-saving vaccines. We need that leadership again.”