HIV/AIDS

At the end of 2007, about 33 million people were living with HIV, 62 per cent of whom were female. Each year around 2.7 million new people become infected with HIV and 2 million die of AIDS.

Commonwealth countries represent around 30 per cent of the world’s population, but carry a disproportionate 60 per cent of the more than 40 million people in the world that are infected by HIV/AIDS.

We bring together law ministers and attorneys general to address legal issues that impede the achievement of the HIV/AIDS Universal Access targets. At the Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005, the UK Government led world leaders in committing to the rapid expansion of HIV treatment with a target of achieving universal access by 2010. At the 2005 World Summit world leaders also committed themselves to this target as part of a massive scaling up of comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment and care.

In 2006, at the second UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, countries agreed to work towards “universal access to comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support” by 2010. These commitments complement the health-related UN Millennium Development Goals, which established targets to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases by 2015 and the HIV/AIDS Millennium Development Goal.

Our main focuses:

• We conduct research on the main legal challenges in the Commonwealth affecting Universal Access. We identify examples where countries have changed or removed laws related to the challenges, and the contexts within which these changes occurred. We work to address these legal barriers by convening law ministers and attorney generals
  
  
• We study access to medicines, their regulation and distribution, in the South and West African regions. The findings will help shape a programme to address problems, involving training and capacity building.