GENEVA, 28 February 2020—Women living with HIV around the world have been fighting for decades for the recognition of their sexual and reproductive health and rights, including their right to start a family and have children. However, over the years, there have been far too many examples of forced sterilizations and coerced abortions.

The sixty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States of America, in March 2020 and will be a reminder that 25 years ago governments adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Governments agreed and committed to uphold the human rights of all women and to protect and preserve their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Those rights include the right to start a family and have children, the right to decide the number and spacing of their children, the right to reproductive autonomy and the right to access quality services to support their reproductive health choices, based on their informed, safe and voluntary consent.

These are fundamental human rights that belong to all women, regardless of HIV status, and are guaranteed in global and regional treaties. In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly committed to ending forced sterilization, in particular the sterilization of women living with HIV, in the Political Declaration on Ending AIDS.

The South African Commission on Gender Equality’s report dated February 2020 reminds us of the need for reproductive justice for women living with HIV, and that we must be constantly vigilant for and responsive to violations.

UNAIDS acknowledges the report and its findings that women living with HIV have been subjected to forced and/or coerced sterilization. UNAIDS thanks the International Community of Women Living with HIV, and Her Rights Initiative for bringing the cases to the attention of the Commission and we commend the Commission for demanding a response. 

UNAIDS notes that South Africa recently launched its National Human Rights Plan to tackle human rights-related barriers to HIV and tuberculosis services and gender inequality in South Africa. UNAIDS and the United Nations family stands ready to fully support government, civil society and stakeholders in the roll-out of the plan.

GENEVA, 29 February 2020—UNAIDS welcomes the appointment of Deborah Birx as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. Ms Birx’s distinguished career as a world-renowned medical expert has included her contribution to the recent progress in the global response to HIV and her commitment to working with communities affected by HIV in her position as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator and United States Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.

“Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to appoint Deborah Birx to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator is a wise one,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima. “Ms Birx has repeatedly demonstrated her unparalleled ability to control infectious diseases and is extremely well positioned to develop an effective plan to address COVID-19 in the United States of America.”

Connecting people in need quickly with services that prevent, or treat, the effects of disease requires a specialized skill that Ms Birx has developed over her nearly three decades as a public health expert. Her experience with tackling disease-related stigma and discrimination and her understanding of how to develop effective health responses that deliver results for people will be invaluable in her new role.

"I am confident that Ms Birx will translate the expertise she has applied to HIV to COVID-19,” said Ms Byanyima. “The insights gleaned from the response to HIV can be helpful for the containment of this new viral threat. There is a need for more collaborative work across disease categories. Even as we battle new diseases, we must remain vigilant about concurrent epidemics.”

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.

As the Executive Director of UNAIDS, I lead the work of the United Nations to tackle AIDS. I’m also someone who has lost family members to AIDS. This is personal.

Both my own family experience and our collective experience at the United Nations have highlighted the same key lesson: the struggle to beat AIDS is inseparable from the struggle for women’s rights and from the struggle against all forms of discrimination.

AIDS can be beaten, but it will only be beaten if we take on the social and economic injustices that perpetuate it and spur more scientific innovations to address the real needs of women and girls and people living with and vulnerable to HIV.

Worldwide, AIDS remains the biggest killer of women aged 15–49 years. To end AIDS by 2030, we must end gender-based violence, inequality and insecurity and we must ensure that women and girls have equal access to education, health and employment.

We need to transform our societies so that no one is second class and everyone’s human rights are respected. AIDS cannot be beaten while marginalized communities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, people who inject drugs and sex workers, live in fear of the state or of socially sanctioned violence and abuse.

Beating AIDS depends on tackling all forms of discrimination.

I want to thank all the brave and determined social justice movements who are the true leaders in this work.

I salute you.

Feminism, human rights and zero discrimination are values deeply rooted across the world: they express our humanity, our recognition that I am because you are. And they are central to the struggle to beat AIDS.

Let us beat AIDS. It can be done.

Winnie Byanyima

Executive Director of UNAIDS

GENEVA, 6 February 2020—UNAIDS expresses its deep condolences to the families who have lost loved ones following the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. UNAIDS stands in solidarity with China and offers its full support to measures under way to end the outbreak. 

“China has made extraordinary efforts to contain the outbreak and I have full confidence in China’s ability to bring the epidemic under control,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “At this difficult time, UNAIDS offers its support to global efforts to stop the spread of the virus.”

UNAIDS is working closely with partners and the authorities in China to ensure that people living with and affected by HIV continue to have access to essential HIV services. In areas affected by the 2019-nCoV outbreak, movement may be restricted and access to services limited as hospitals focus on supporting increasing numbers of 2019-nCoV patients.

It is particularly important that people living with HIV and other chronic diseases have access to adequate supplies of medicines in order to enable them to continue treatment and remain healthy. UNAIDS commends the Chinese National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention for taking swift action to ensure that people living with HIV who are away from their home towns during this lock-down period are able to obtain their monthly refills of antiretroviral therapy.

It is still unclear how many people living with HIV have been affected by 2019-nCoV in China and UNAIDS will continue to monitor developments. UNAIDS will also continue to work with the authorities and community partners to ensure that people living with and affected by HIV have correct information on how to prevent 2019-nCoV and how to access the services they need.

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.

GENEVA, 4 February 2020—The United States National Institutes of Health has announced that its HVTN 702 clinical trial of an HIV vaccine has been stopped. While no safety concerns were found during the trial, the independent data and safety monitoring board found that the vaccine was ineffective in preventing HIV transmission.

The trial, conducted at 14 sites across South Africa, followed more than 5400 HIV-negative 18–35-year-olds over 18 months. The participants received six injections during the six-month period, either the vaccine or a placebo. An analysis undertaken after at least 60% of the participants had been in the study for more than 18 months showed that there were 129 HIV infections among the people who had the vaccine, while 123 people who had the placebo became infected.

“While we are obviously disappointed with the results, important science has been learned that can be carried forward to future trials. I thank the study team for this important vaccine trial,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director.

Other major vaccines are currently being tested at scale—the Mosaico trial, which is testing a vaccine among transgender people and gay men and other men who have sex with men in the Americas and in Europe, and the Imbokodo trial, which is testing a vaccine among women in sub-Saharan Africa. An effective HIV vaccine may well prove to be key for sustaining progress against HIV in the future.

Despite considerable investment in prevention during the trial, there was still an HIV incidence of around 4% per year among the women in the trial. This is simply too high. HIV transmission can be prevented. This requires the right combination of interventions, including HIV testing; antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV; pre-exposure prophylaxis, condoms and other prevention options; sexual and reproductive health services, including comprehensive sexuality education; keeping girls in school; and the lifting of social, legal and economic barriers for women and girls.

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.

12 December 2019

On Universal Health Coverage Day, I stand in solidarity with all people who lack access to the health services that they need. Today, 10 000 of those people will die. Every two minutes, a woman will die giving birth. And every second, three people will be pushed into extreme poverty paying for health care. Today, those with the greatest need for health care are the least likely to get it. This must change, and it must change fast.

Universal health coverage is a human right that belongs to everyone on this planet. No matter who they are or where they live, everyone has the right to access quality health services without facing financial hardship. This was the historic commitment made by United Nations Member States in the political declaration made at the first-ever high-level meeting on universal health coverage last September.

Universal health coverage is central to our time and to the AIDS response, because better health outcomes are, first and foremost, about addressing inequities. Evidence that health coverage has truly become universal will be in improved health and in the elimination of the unacceptable inequality in health outcomes for the most marginalized populations. It will be the day when no parent has to make a choice between which child they will save because the cost of treatment is too high.

Each year, 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty and 900 million face severe financial hardship paying for their health care. Despite commitments to bring these figures down, alarmingly they are on the rise. The fastest increase is in Africa, where two thirds of countries still charge user fees for all levels of care. This must change. User fees trap people, especially women and children, in cycles of poverty, illness and powerlessness. It is an injustice to force people to choose between paying for food, education or the health services they need. It is a human rights violation to detain patients in hospitals when they can’t afford their bill. Universal health coverage must lift the financial barriers to accessing health care. To ensure that rights are upheld and lives are saved, quality health care should be made available at the point of use for all people.

But universal health coverage needs also to go beyond the health sector, to address the social, economic and structural determinants of health, such as poverty, lack of formal education, gender inequality and gender-based violence. Similarly, it must ensure that vulnerable and key populations are not excluded from accessing health services owing to legal barriers or stigma and discrimination because of who they are.

The AIDS response has taught us that community-led organizations are central to any effective health system. A few days ago, we commemorated World AIDS Day with a call to recognize that communities make the difference. If today more than 24 million people have access to HIV treatment, it is first and foremost thanks to the work of those communities to advocate, deliver services and hold systems accountable.

For universal health coverage to achieve measurable health outcomes, it must fund and include community-led services. Communities need to be at the centre, involved in each step of health governance, planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting and research.

In recognizing the theme of this year’s Universal Health Coverage Day, “Keep the promise”, I call on governments and communities to keep up the momentum generated by the commitment in the political declaration and work together to advance equitable quality health services that reach the people in need and improve their well-being. This will be essential to both ending AIDS and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Winnie Byanyima

Executive Director of UNAIDS

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

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.

10 December 2019

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.

GENEVA, 2 December 2019—UNAIDS applauds the decision by the parliament of Australia’s Northern Territory to decriminalize sex work. The Sex Industry Bill 2019 enhances the safety of sex workers and their clients by applying public health legislation to operators of sex service businesses and by allowing sex workers to work together. The legislation explicitly prohibits the exploitation of sex workers, supports their access to justice and outlaws any involvement of children.

“I commend this decision by Australia’s Northern Territory, which upholds the human rights of sex workers and means that they can operate within existing laws and regulations, including laws relating to employment, occupational health and safety, workers’ rights and discrimination,” said the UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. “The decriminalization of sex work reduces the risk of HIV transmission for both sex workers and their clients.”

Globally, sex workers are 21 times more likely to acquire HIV than the general adult population. A 2014 study published in the Lancet indicated that the decriminalization of sex work is the single intervention that would have the greatest impact on the course of the HIV epidemic over 10 years, with reductions in new HIV infections among sex workers and their clients estimated at between 33% and 46%.

“This is a huge achievement built on the advocacy of sex workers and their supporters over many years and the result of best practice collaboration between the government and sex workers,” said the Chief Executive Officer of Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers’ Association, Jules Kim. “Decriminalization means that sex workers in the Northern Territory are able to access justice in the event of a crime without fear of being arrested. We will also be able to implement occupational health and safety strategies and prioritize the health and safety of all those involved in sex work.”

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.

GENEVA, 25 November 2019—UNAIDS warmly welcomes the appointment of Ghada Fathi Waly as the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna.

“I look forward to working closely with Ms Waly to help build safer societies for all where everyone has unimpeded access to the right to health, education and justice,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director. “UNAIDS will also continue to partner the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in advancing innovative harm reduction programmes and policies for people who use drugs that aim to reduce the damaging effects of drug use on individuals and societies, while respecting the rights of people who use drugs and prisoners.”

HIV infections among people who inject drugs are rising. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa in 2018, people who inject drugs and their sexual partners accounted for around one fifth of all people newly infected with HIV. In two regions of the world—eastern Europe and central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa—people who inject drugs accounted for more than one third of new infections in 2018. Viral hepatitis and tuberculosis rates among people who use drugs are also high in many parts of the world. These preventable and treatable diseases, combined with overdose deaths, which are also preventable, are claiming hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

Comprehensive harm reduction services—including needle–syringe programmes, opioid substitution therapy, drug dependence treatment, overdose prevention and testing and treatment for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis B and C—reduce the incidence of blood-borne infections, overdose deaths and other harms.

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.

1 December 2019

I believe in communities.

Communities make change happen.

Communities are the best hope for ending AIDS because communities have fought against HIV right from the beginning!

As the epidemic raged through our countries, cities, villages, women held communities together and bore the higher burden of care for their families.

For far too long we have taken their volunteerism for granted.

In the face of adversity, communities of gay men, sex workers and people who use drugs have organized themselves to claim their right to health as equal citizens. 

So, we know that communities have proved their worth. There is no debate there.

Without communities, 24 million people would not be on treatment today. Without communities led by women living with and affected by HIV, we would not be close to ending new HIV infections among children, raising orphans and caring for the sick. 

Twenty-five years ago, a Burundi woman called Jeanne was the first person to disclose that she was living with HIV. Today, Jeanne is holding leaders accountable and fighting for the right to health care.

Pioneers like Jeanne have been joined by younger leaders, like 20-year-old Yana, who was born with HIV in Ukraine. Yana founded Teenergizer, a group bringing together young people across eastern Europe. In a world where power resides with old men, she wants her peers to have a voice and a choice.

Consider Fiacre. He lives in Central African Republic, displaced by conflict along with thousands of others. Fiacre cycles to a clinic, crossing barriers and checkpoints to collect antiretroviral medicines for him and members of a group he belongs to. Without this support, each person would have to make the dangerous journey on their own. Simply amazing.

As you can see, communities make the difference all over the world.

However, the way communities are being taken for granted has to change.

On World AIDS Day, UNAIDS salutes the achievements of activists and communities in the struggle against HIV. We remember and we honour all those whom we have lost along the way. Activists challenged the silence and brought life-saving services to their communities. But the countless contributions by women and many others can never replace the responsibility of governments.

Let me remind you, governments committed to at least 30% of HIV services being community-led. 

They also agreed that 6% of all HIV funding go to community mobilization, promoting human rights and changing harmful laws that act as barriers to ending AIDS.

Let’s be clear, defending human rights and challenging discrimination, criminalization and stigma is risky work today.

So, we call on governments to open a space so that activists can do the work they do best.

With communities in the lead and governments living up to their promises, we will end AIDS.

Winnie Byanyima

Executive Director of UNAIDS

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

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.