Thank you to everyone who took action, but please stay tuned for further developments. From today, governments must start honouring their commitments so that the HIV response reaches those who most need it.

The Political Declaration, which will guide the global HIV/AIDS response for the next five years, recommits governments to Universal Access and setting measurable targets in reach and funding, and contains powerful language on key affected populations, human rights and strong accountability systems.

Read the full Alliance response to the Declaration

Highlights of the Political Declaration:

Recognition of men who have sex with men, people who use drugs and sex workers as key affected populations

For the first time, a UN Political Declaration on AIDS names these groups and acknowledges that many national HIV prevention strategies fail to focus on these populations. The text even sets a target to reduce transmission of HIV among people who inject drugs by 50 per cent by 2015.

Very regrettably the text does not mention transgender people at all.

Prevention at the cornerstone of the HIV response

The declaration considers that HIV prevention is vital but that spending is insufficient to mount an effective global HIV prevention response, and often doesn’t focus on populations who are most at risk. It also acknowledges that the global prevention response is often uncoordinated and not evidence-based. It commits to redouble HIV prevention efforts by taking all measures to implement comprehensive, evidence-based prevention approaches, and ensure that national prevention strategies comprehensively target populations at higher risk.

Commitment to an evidence-based response and a stronger accountability framework

The Declaration commits to  ensure that systems of data collection and analysis about populations that are most at risk are strengthened, and to revise the UNGASS core indicators proposed this year by the end of 2012 and “where necessary, to strengthen national, regional and global coordination and monitoring mechanisms of HIV and AIDS responses”.

Human rights values in the HIV response

The declaration commits to national HIV and AIDS strategies that promote and protect human rights, including programmes aimed at eliminating stigma and discrimination against people living with and affected by HIV. It gives particular attention to all people vulnerable to and affected by HIV and commits to “monitoring the impact of the legal environment on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support” and to intensifying “national efforts to create enabling legal, social and policy frameworks in each national context in order to eliminate stigma, discrimination and violence related to HIV.”

Emphasising the role of community-based responses to HIV

The Political Declaration endorses the community approach response to HIV recognising “the role that community organizations play, including those run by people living with HIV, in sustaining national and local HIV and AIDS responses…and strengthening health systems, in particular the primary healthcare approach.”

A patient receives drug substitution therapy in Ukraine

In January we reported on the Ministry of the Interior’s worrying crackdown on patients trying to access legal drug substitution therapy disrupting HIV prevention programmes in the country.

We’d like to thank everyone who took part in the campaign’s action and wrote to the Ukrainian government to demand an end to the harassment and the disruption of HIV prevention services.

Treatment was being withheld unless patients provided information on their health and HIV status in a ‘voluntary’ survey. NGOs and charities supporting substitution therapy also faced harassment and intimidation. Documents were taken from charity organisations and in some cities programmes for drug users stopped altogether.

Currently new cases of HIV remain highest among people who use drugs. An estimated 23% of injecting drug users are HIV positive in Ukraine.

Substitution therapy is protected by law in Ukraine. However, in reality, former drug users enrolled in substitution therapy programmes, are subject to criminal prosecution, harassment and intimidation by law enforcement officers in Ukraine.

Along with the Prime Minister’s order Ukraine’s Ministry of Health has issued an overview of the benefits and successes of substitution which states that, “considering positive outcomes related to the trends in HIV transmission and re-socialization of drug users, it is necessary to continue extending substitution maintenance treatment for injecting drug users and increase their coverage with antiretroviral treatment for the purpose of secondary prevention of sexual HIV transmission”.

While we welcome these positive developments we urge the government of Ukraine to put their support of drug substitution therapy into practice. The people who urgently require therapy should receive it without facing harassment and abuse from state authorities.