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| Photo Credit: India HIV/AIDS Alliance |
(First published by India HIV/AIDS Alliance)
Every two years, researchers, implementers, policy makers, and community activists come together at the International AIDS Conference to take stock of the pandemic: Where are we now? Where have we been? Where are we heading? Discoveries are heralded and strategies dissected. There are always more questions than answers, but there is one question that needs to be answered at AIDS 2014 and beyond: Do we count?
Do the lives of men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, sex workers, transgenders and even people living with HIV — especially those from these key affected populations — really count? On a basic level, the answer must be a resounding and unequivocal “YES!” Every human life counts. Every life has equal value. Yet, while an affirmative chorus may echo in the halls of the conference, easy rhetoric will not be enough.
Data analysis by UNAIDS indicates that as many as half of all new HIV infections globally occur in key populations. This should come as no surprise. The disproportional concentration of the virus in these groups is hardly news, shaping the trajectory of the epidemic and driving the complex stigma that still defines HIV/AIDS.
Though we are frequently reminded that we are in the era of evidence-based public health, data-driven decision-making, and performance-based metrics, the evidence on HIV vulnerability in key populations is routinely ignored. We aren’t even counted in many places. Surveillance fails to find us. Not surprisingly, funding for HIV services responsive to our needs remains slight.
Slowly but surely the message is getting through. The large players in the global HIV response are lining up to affirm their commitment to these (new?) priorities. On July 11, 2014, the World Health Organisation released a long-awaited and rapidly developed publication, Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Care for Key Populations. It is an impressive document written and reviewed by a Who’s Who of experts working with and representing these groups.
There can be no doubt about the sincerity or good intentions of the guidelines’ authors, and this document has the potential to influence policy and practice globally. Yet questions persist in the willingness of institutions — governments, donors, development agencies and civil society — to embrace their fundamental responsibility to the health of key populations and invest accordingly in a sustained and broad-based effort to end the unremitting toll of HIV and AIDS on our lives.
New technical guidelines and progressive policies can be applauded, but to make the difference intended, they must be applied. In order for them to be applied, investments must be targeted to fill these gaps and expanded to match the scale of our need. The proof of commitment will be in the expansion of funding invested in programming for key populations. Now is the time to prove we count.
[First published by India HIV/AIDS Alliance]
James Robertson, Citizen News Service - CNS
29 July 2014
(The author of this article is Executive Director of India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi)
