Kay Warren and Ambassdor Mark Dybul, United Nations General Assembly, June 2008

United Nations Discusses Progress
Article from: Action Link, June 2008

The United Nations General Assembly held a special session on HIV/AIDS June 10-11 in New York City with a number of important pre-session side events occurring June 9. This meeting was convened to assess progress made in achieving the United Nation’s overall goals intended to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Over 150 nations and more than 500 nongovernmental organizations participated in the United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. The AIDS Institute participated in several ways. Dr. Gene Copello, Executive Director, was appointed a member of the United States government delegation, headed by Ambassador Mark Dybul. The delegation consisted of a number of community-based representatives as well as government officials from the State Department and Congressman Henry Waxman’s office was also represented in the delegation. On June 10, Dr. Copello and Dr. Eric Goosby of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, based in San Francisco, another community member of the US delegation, officially represented the United States during a panel session focused on countries with concentrated HIV epidemics. Other community members of the delegation included Regan Hoffman, Editor-in-Chief of POZ magazine, and Kay Warren of Saddleback Church based in southern California. James Sykes, Global Program Coordinator, represented The AIDS Institute in the agency’s capacity as a registered UN nongovernmental organization for the special meeting. This included participation in an all day civil society caucus on June 9 and a civil society hearing on June 10. In addition, The AIDS Institute partnered with other organizations in hosting two side events.

Three major themes kept recurring during the meeting. First, there were numerous calls from a wide range of groups and individuals to end HIV travel bans, including the one codified

into United States law. A special panel session was held about the United States ban on HIV travel and immigration on June 10. Several speakers remarked about the irony of the special

meeting on AIDS being held at the UN General Assembly, which is housed in a nation with an HIV travel ban. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, referred to the need to remove HIV travel restrictions as a human rights issue. The second recurring theme was the success of the

President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States program which has brought prevention services, medical treatment, and care to individuals living with HIV/AIDS

in regions of the world heavily impacted by the pandemic. Ambassador Mark Dybul, who coordinates PEPFAR, spoke before the General Assembly on June 11, outlining the work of

PEPFAR, its successes and challenges. PEPFAR expires September 30, 2008. A bill has passed in the US House of Representatives which reauthorized PEPFAR. In the US Senate a similar bill is pending action. President Bush has expressed his support for PEPFAR to be quickly reauthorized. A third theme heard throughout the meeting was the need to for increased attention on HIV prevention – both behavioral programs and biomedical programs such as vaccine development and male circumcision. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), US National Institutes of Health (NIH) made a point of stressing the need for a far greater focus on prevention in his address to the General Assembly on June 10.