The 30th board meeting agenda included a wide variety of issues – from financial updates to a closer look at strategic investment. Discussions over decision points arising from this meeting were again dominated by the difficulty of some governments speaking about key populations, sexual and reproductive health rights, intellectual property and trade related agreements and criminalization issues. This was especially evident in the agenda items that dealt with civil society (NGO report) and legal issues (follow up to the last board meeting’s thematic session on HIV and the law). At one point in the meeting, the refusal of a minority of countries to support the right to justice of key populations caused the NGO Delegation and civil society Observers to stand in solidarity as the incoming Africa Delegate took the floor. He reminded the board that key populations exist in all regions of the world and that they remain essential partners in an effective and ethical HIV response.

The decline in AIDS-related deaths, due to an increase in treatment uptake, over recent years has not been matched by successes in prevention, with five new infections for every three people starting treatment. The number of new HIV infections varies widely within and between countries and across different populations. The international community has committed toContinue reading « Combination Prevention: Addressing the urgent need to reinvigorate HIV prevention responses globally by scaling up and achieving synergies to halt and begin to reverse the spread of the AIDS epidemic »