The Global Network of People living with HIV (GNP+) supports the United States Government’s call for a scale up of HIV prevention efforts, particularly the scale up of HIV treatment access, and the prevention of vertical transmission. GNP+ is encouraged that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made the objective of an ‘AIDS-Free generation’ a US policy priority and will help make this objective a reality.

“Having combination prevention as a policy priority is an important step,” says Dr. Kevin Moody, International Coordinator and CEO of GNP+. “However, this policy must be transformed into action. Every day we delay scaling-up prevention and treatment services, people in dire need are affected unnecessarily.”

GNP+ advocates that the US government prioritizes the following in the implementation of their policy:

1)      People living with HIV themselves must be involved in the development and implementation of the policy, to ensure that any comprehensive or combined prevention effort supports the health and dignity of people living with HIV.

2)      Any approach to support combination prevention needs to be inclusive of key populations living with and at increased risk of HIV, specifically women, men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers, prisoners, and displaced people, legal and illegal migrants.

3)      A scale up of treatment should also include a scale up of testing for HIV. However, this scale up of testing needs to happen within an ethical framework: Voluntary Counseling and testing needs to be accompanied by extensive efforts to decrease stigma, discrimination and the criminalization of HIV transmission and/or exposure.