Victoria Beckham continues to be a champion for people living with and affected by HIV, especially women and children. Reducing stigma and discrimination and ensuring that people have access to testing, treatment and prevention services are her priorities. Victoria Beckham shared her thoughts in a special interview with Media Planet on the occasion of World AIDS Day.

Why is supporting the HIV cause so important to you, and why did you want to become a UNAIDS international goodwill ambassador?

I have always been a strong believer in women supporting other women. In my life I’ve been lucky enough to have been inspired and supported by fantastic women who have changed my outlook on life and who have inspired me to believe in myself and in my abilities.

Working with UNAIDS has given me the opportunity to meet some incredible women living with HIV and the people supporting them—the community health workers, peer support groups, the nurses, doctors who have dedicated their lives to helping people living with HIV. If I can lend my support to make change by using my voice to share their stories, then of course I’m going to do it – who wouldn’t?

What challenges do we still face in the fight against HIV?

What I didn’t realise is the huge impact that HIV is still having on families and communities, particularly in Africa. There are around 37 million people now living with HIV around the world, the highest number ever, and most are in Africa. Living with HIV isn’t easy.

Firstly, you have to know your status and get tested— 9.4 million people  living with HIV still don’t know they have the virus, which is why UNAIDS is focusing this year’s World AIDS Day Campaign around testing.

Secondly, you have to deal with the stigma that is still rampant in many parts of the world — do I tell my family? How do I protect my partner? What if my employer finds out? Are my kids OK?

Thirdly, you have to start taking treatment every day for the rest of your life… It’s a tough disease to deal with both physically and mentally, and people are still becoming infected at an alarmingly high rate.

As UNAIDS has shown, we still have miles to go to end AIDS. 1.8 million people became newly infected last year—it’s clear that a lot more needs to be done.

What have been your most powerful experiences as a UNAIDS international goodwill ambassador?

"For me, it has been meeting the women who are struggling every day to make a better life for their children. Some are literally putting their lives on the line just to make ends meet so that they can make sure their children are fed, are healthy and can go to school in the hope that they will have better life in the future. As a mother I can’t help but be moved by that.

When you have children, the most important thing is making sure that they’re OK—our kids come first, always. And it’s the children I met while I was travelling in Ethiopia with UNAIDS, children born with HIV whose parents have died of AIDS. This is a tragedy that is still happening around the world today despite the availability of preventative medicines.

Are you optimistic that we can one day live in a world that is free of HIV?

I strongly believe that finding a vaccine and a cure is possible, and I am confident that will happen in my lifetime. Until then, there are many things that we can do today to stop the impact HIV is having on people, on families and on communities.

Overcoming the stigma will allow young people to get the right information about how to protect themselves and stop new infections. It will allow people who think they may have been at risk of HIV to come forward to get tested and it will allow people living with HIV to not be afraid of taking treatment and seeking the care and support they need. Ending AIDS, yes one day—ending the impact of HIV…. we can do that today.

UNAIDS International Goodwill Ambassador urges people to test for HIV and to seek treatment if necessary  

GENEVA, 23 November 2018—A little over one week before World AIDS Day, UNAIDS International Goodwill Ambassador Victoria Beckham has visited the organization’s Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters to support calls for people to know their HIV status and to seek treatment for HIV if necessary.

“I am really happy to be in Geneva to support UNAIDS in the run-up to World AIDS Day,” said Ms Beckham during her visit. “We need to make sure that people feel supported to take an HIV test by ending the stigma and discrimination still too often associated with the virus. Today, we have the medicines to keep people healthy and to stop the virus being transmitted. AIDS isn’t over yet, but it can be.”

UNAIDS estimates that there were around 36.9 million people living with HIV worldwide in 2017, with around 21.7 million people accessing life-saving medicines that keep people alive and well and stop the transmission of the virus. However, UNAIDS also estimates that around one in four people worldwide continue to be unaware that they are living with HIV.

During the visit, the UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, met with Ms Beckham to thank her for her support and to discuss the latest developments in the AIDS response.

“We have made a lot of progress in expanding access to treatment, but the number of people who don’t know their HIV status is still far too high,” said Mr Sidibé. “We have to make sure that people have access to testing services and are provided with treatment immediately if they need it. We also have to make sure that people have access to the full range of HIV prevention options to bring down the number of new HIV infections.”

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, AIDS-related deaths have been reduced by more than 51% since the peak in 2004. In 2017, 940 000 people died from an AIDS-related illness worldwide, compared to 1.9 million in 2004. In 2017, however, there were 1.8 million new HIV infections.

In many regions of the world, women continue to be the worst affected by the epidemic and every week 6600 young women aged 15–24 years become infected with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, three in four new infections among adolescents aged 15–19 years are among girls, and young women aged 15–24 years are twice as likely to be living with HIV than men.

In other regions, the epidemic is concentrated among key populations, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people, people who inject drugs, prisoners and other incarcerated people and migrants.

It is estimated that around 35.4 million people worldwide have died from an AID-related illness since the start of the epidemic.

Witnessing first-hand the successes and challenges of Kenya’s AIDS response, Victoria and Brooklyn Beckham call for greater commitment, action and funding to end the AIDS epidemic

Nairobi, Kenya, 8 October 2016—UNAIDS International Goodwill Ambassador Victoria Beckham and her son, Brooklyn Beckham, have completed a three-day mission to Kenya with Born Free Africa and UNAIDS to raise awareness about HIV. Their visit focused on preventing new HIV infections among newborn children and keeping their mothers healthy and the urgency of promoting HIV testing, prevention and treatment for young people, especially adolescent girls and young women. 

During the mission, Victoria and Brooklyn Beckham travelled across the country visiting exciting projects that aim to reduce the effects of HIV in Kenya. They met with community and health workers to understand the challenges they face in their work and learned about their many successes. Victoria and Brooklyn spent time with children and talked to young people and adults living with or affected by HIV, hearing first-hand their personal stories and experiences of HIV.

Today, alongside his mother, Brooklyn took part in a national football campaign “Maisha kick out HIV stigma”, which aims to motivate young people to get HIV tested. HIV testing, prevention and treatment services are critical to ending the AIDS epidemic, but often people, in particular young people, do not access services owing to lack of information and the stigma and discrimination linked to HIV. Brooklyn joined the football match and showed off his footballing talents on the pitch.

UNAIDS estimates that 1.5 million people are living with HIV in Kenya, with about 71 000 new HIV infections among adults in 2015. One third of all new HIV infections occurred among young women and adolescent girls aged 15–24 years, who are at particularly high risk. There were 6600 new HIV infections among children in 2015. The Government of Kenya is committed to ending AIDS and in addition to funding its own national HIV work has recently pledged US$ 5 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and US$ 500 000 to UNAIDS to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

There have been many successes in the AIDS response, but Ms Beckham used the opportunity to highlight that the AIDS epidemic is far from over. “We have come such a long way together to overcome AIDS—we know the facts, we have the tools, but we need commitment, action and funding to see this through! Ending AIDS can happen, but will only happen if we join together and end all forms of stigma and discrimination.”

“Having the support of our International Goodwill Ambassador is extremely important for Kenya in moving towards ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat,” said UNAIDS Country Director, Jantine Jacobi.

The mission was organized by the Kenyan Ministry of Health, Born Free Africa and UNAIDS.

Born Free Africa

Born Free Africa is a private philanthropic initiative to eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV. Born Free works with African governments to invest in highly targeted projects to test the hypothesis that catalytic talent can drive significant change within public health systems. Born Free’s investments in Nigeria and Kenya demonstrate that catalytic talent can be a key lever for change. Born Free has also partnered with the fashion community to harness their voice, creativity, and reach to inspire urgency toward the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.