UNAIDS

Today is the 20th annual World AIDS Day – a day to recognize progress in fighting the disease, but to also recommit to the long road ahead. For over 14 years, UNAIDS has helped to provide strategic direction and current data to those fighting the pandemic. UNAIDS has grown to around 700 employees, but it is still not well known to most people. Today seems like an appropriate day to describe it.

UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, was created to coordinate global action against the AIDS epidemic. Established in 1994 by a United Nations resolution, it starting its work in 1996 and now operates in more than 80 countries worldwide. AIDS funding has increased almost forty fold since 1996, when the figure stood at roughly $260 million, to nearly $10 billion in 2007.

UNAIDS plays a unique role in the international community, rallying ten distinct UN agencies to work together to combat AIDS. The program focuses its work in five key areas: leadership and advocacy, strategic information and technical support, tracking monitoring and evaluation, civil society engagement and mobilization of resources. With the help of its partners, UNAIDS works to prevent the spread of HIV, support those infected with the disease, lessen the vulnerability of individuals and communities to HIV/AIDS, and reduce the socioeconomic and human impact of the epidemic.

Dr. Peter Piot has served as the Executive Director of UNAIDS since it was started. Dr. Piot successfully organized the first ever UN sessions to discuss AIDS, including the 2000 UN Security Council and the 2001 UN General Assembly. At the end of this year, Dr. Piot will be stepping down from his UNAIDS post and taking on a position as the first Director of the new Institute for Global Health at Imperial College London. As the head of the largest organization devoted to a single disease, the new Executive Director will face many challenges and opportunities as UNAIDS responds to the challenge of the AIDS epidemic.

Today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon named Michel Sidibe the new Executive Director of UNAIDS. He is currently the Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS and will assume his new post on January 1st. You can read his full biography and a press release here.

- Rena Pacheco-Theard

AIDS Death Drop 10%

More newspapers are picking up on the positive new global AIDS numbers we reported yesterday:

In today’s LA Times:

The number of AIDS deaths worldwide dropped 10% in 2007 because of increasing access to treatment, as did the number of new infections in children, the United Nations reported Tuesday.

Condom use and prevention efforts increased in many countries and adolescent sexual intercourse declined in some of the most heavily affected regions, the report says.

“In a surprisingly short period of time, there has been a tripling of prevention efforts in some countries,” said Dr. Paul De Lay, director of evaluation for UNAIDS…

“The lesson here is that where there is investment, prevention and treatment work,” said the Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha of the Hope Institute in Uganda.

UNAIDS Report Shows New Gains

Earlier today, UNAIDS released its 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic. The report, which is published every two years, takes a detailed look at the state of the epidemic and progress towards scaling-up access to treatment, prevention and care around the world.

An important finding in this year’s report is that some progress is being made on the prevention side. BBC reports:

“The report says prevention programmes have seen changes in sexual behaviour, and a drop in infection rates in countries such as Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Condom use is also increasing among young people with multiple partners in many countries. This has been seen in seven of the most affected countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia…. The report also reveals that the percentage of HIV-positive pregnant women receiving antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission of the virus to their child rose from 14% in 2005 to 33% in 2007.”

The report also found that expanded access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment is helping to reduce deaths. In 2007, the number of AIDS-related deaths dropped to 2 million, down from 2.2 million in 2005.

Stay tuned here for a closer look some of the report’s findings.

-Nora Coghlan