The UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS finished up on the 10th. Some of the goals set by world leaders included halving the infection rate among IV drug users, eliminating new HIV infections among children and reducing sexual transmission by 2015 and also achieving the Millennium Development Goal 6 which aspires to halt and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015. As mentioned in my last blog, pediatric AIDS was given a significant amount of attention as well at the meeting with particular focus on gender inequalities and its impact on HIV transmission and treatment. A panel discussion centered on females and HIV brought up the issue of the unequal access to HIV treatment for women in many countries which has a significant effect on the pediatric AIDS issue. The meeting chose to focus on equal access to treatment for women as a means of combating mother-to-child transmission. The meeting did not set up any concrete plans or programs and only served to set goals for the UN member states to aspire to regarding HIV/AIDS. The goals are incredibly ambitious in my opinion and it will be very interesting to see the results in 2015 and which member states really commit to achieving the goals.
If you would like to read more about the goals set forth and the discussions you can go to www.unaids.org. There is also an official website for the meeting at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/aidsmeeting2011/ where you can read the final declaration that was adopted titled “Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS: Intensifying Our Efforts to Eliminate HIV/AIDS”.
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