Significant progress towards reducing child and maternal mortality is being made but to meet the Millennium Development Goals 4,5,6, strategies aimed at reaching the world’s most inaccessible, marginalized and vulnerable populations will be required, health leaders said today.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS welcomes U.S. Senate approval of the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.” With this key vote, the U.S. government has taken another major step in keeping its commitment to the global AIDS response.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) welcomes the decision reached by the Group of Eight (G8) leaders at the Summit in Hokkaido, Japan to honour in full their commitments to continue working towards the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS welcomes the news that the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has approved the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.”

Joint International Health Partners Statement on behalf of the GAVI Alliance, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNICEF, United Nations Population Fund, World Bank and the World Health Organization.

The Joint United Nations Programme

The Joint United Nations Programme on

– In many low and middle-income countries, growing levels of HIV are continuing to cause serious economic and development set backs. Companies are loosing a significant part of their workforce, particularly in high prevalence countries.

Kigali, Rwanda, 14 February 2006 – Leaders from Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, UNICEF and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS today heralded the progress Rwanda is making in the AIDS response and pressed for continued leadership and improved coordination to ensure further success.

Over £27.5 million for global AIDS prevention was today announced by the Prime Minister, showing the UK’s commitment on World AIDS Day to tackling the world’s fourth biggest killer.