Ruth, Alice and Sophie went to Mexico this year for the 17th biennial International Aids Conference, but it could be you in 2010!!! They went as UNICEF youth volunteer delegates, and Ruth is heavily involved with the Students Stop AIDS campaign. ‘Today has been full of cultural exploits,’ writes Ruth in her blog, and it’s [...]
PEPFAR has been reauthorized and though they revoked the clause allocating a minimum of 33% of resources on abstinence till marriage programmes, now 50% must be spent on abstinence, delay of sexual debut, fidelity and partner reduction in all countries with a generalised AIDS epidemic. Failure to comply may result in defunding. The previous American [...]
A huge step towards fair drug pricing and access to treatment was made this week when UNITAID, the international drug purchasing facility, gave the green light to exploration of the creation of patent pools for HIV and AIDS drugs. The hope is that the six-month research phase will lead to a working model of the [...]
With only 2 years until the G8’s 2010 target for universal access the deadline for weakly reiterating half-hearted old promises has well and truly expired, but leaders at this week’s G8 summit in Japan didn’t even really manage that.
The summit confirmed Stop AIDS campaigners’ fears by failing to take any concrete steps to deliver their [...]
A draft G8 communiqué leaked to the Financial Times on June 30th has raised concerns this group of rich and powerful countries are set to betray their promises to Stop AIDS at their annual meeting, this year being hosted by Japan.
An ambiguous pledge made by the Group of Eight countries in 2007 to spend £60 [...]
Halfway through the Millennium Development Goals time frame and two years before the 2010 deadline of universal access to treatment, prevention and care, 147 member states met in June to review progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS took place in New York [...]
DFID have launched their seven year HIV and AIDS strategy paper, ‘Achieving Universal Access’, which they believe will deliver the UK’s end of the bargain on delivering universal access, pledging £6 billion to improve health care systems and services by 2015. This pledge is great news, ensuring the long term, predictable funding vital to a [...]
On April 2, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to reauthorize and expand the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). More than tripling the funds previously allocated to the programme in the last five years – from $15 billion to $50 billion over 5 years. The plan still needs to pass through the Senate [...]
On March 11th over 60 student campaigners joined the Stop AIDS Campaign Parliamentary Day of Action and descended on London to lobby their MPs about HIV in the developing world. One such MP made a major move yesterday in focussing the government’s attention on this important issue. Acting upon a strong relationship with the [...]
What a treat it is when MPs are as efficient and helpful as Tim Farron (Lib Dem for Westmorland and Lonsdale). Not only did he meet with two student groups at the lobby day on March 11th, he became more knowledgeable on the issues and has already tabled some of the questions we asked him [...]
