On 18 November, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), welcomed UNAIDS onto its prestigious campus for the launch of the 2014 UNAIDS World AIDS Day report, Fast-Track: ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Held for the first time in Los Angeles, the World AIDS Day report launch brought together students, policy-makers, scientists, AIDS advocates and celebrities to create a new movement of solidarity around ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
Leading AIDS advocate David Gere, Professor and Director of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center, hosted the launch, which took the form of an interactive dialogue with the UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé. Mr Sidibé shared with the audience his vision for the future of the AIDS response and how the AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030.
The event was opened with an invigorating clip featuring the UCLA Sex Squad, a group of undergraduate students dedicated to ensuring the sexual health and well-being of high school and college students in Los Angeles.
The Sex Squad is part of a broad nexus of HIV programmes and research at UCLA, which includes vaccine development at the UCLA AIDS Institute, health research at the Fielding School of Public Health and arts-based interventions, such as the Sex Squad, devised by the UCLA Art & Global Health Center. Sex squad member Zakk Marquez gave a live performance, sharing his personal story about the complexities of being in a serodiscordant relationship—a couple in which one person is HIV-negative and the other HIV-positive.
Special guest Charlize Theron, United Nations Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, welcomed Mr Sidibé to the stage and expressed her support for UNAIDS’ new Fast-Track Targets. She also urged for continued efforts to address the specific needs of adolescents affected by HIV to ensure that no one is left behind.
“UCLA wants to be fully integrated in this long-term UNAIDS strategy. In order to have any hope of stopping the AIDS epidemic by 2030 we need all of it—from lab research to arts-based projects.”
David Gere, Professor and Director of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center
“It is a privilege to work with the Art & Global Health Center and to be a part of the Sex Squad. I think they helped save my life, my sanity, my humanity. We are aiming to make the world a safer and sexier place through art, education, play and our own vulnerability. We are all the faces of HIV because we are all people.”
Zakk Marquez, fourth year UCLA student and Sex Squad member
"We have a window of opportunity. If we seize this opportunity we can not only make progress but break the trajectory of this epidemic make AIDS history."
Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS
“HIV is ingrained into who I am and where I come from. In South Africa, we have 1% of the global population and 18% of the global HIV burden. If we can fast track the epidemic any country can.”
Charlize Theron, United Nations Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project
