Feature story

New HIV prevention commission will be called on to boost global effort

25 June 2010

women

In December 2009, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé called for a “prevention revolution” and announced the formation of a UNAIDS High Level Commission on HIV Prevention. The Commission, composed of political, business, activist and philanthropic leaders, will lead a political action campaign over the coming year to galvanize commitment at the highest level in support of effective HIV prevention programmes.

The Commission will be launched at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria on 21 July 2010. Ahead of the launch, the Commission’s Co-chairs, Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Nobel Prize Laureate in Medicine for her role in the discovery of HIV, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, have endorsed a statement, prepared by the Commission’s Scientific Advisory Panel, calling for renewed leadership and intensified action to prevent new HIV infections.

This statement is open for signature by scientists, activists, and others supporting effective HIV prevention programmes. The statement and list of supporters will be presented at the Commission’s launch.

To sign-on to the statement, visit http://aidsspace.org/commission.php. (The web site is hosted by AIDSspace.org and is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic). The deadline for signatures is 9 July 2010.