The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP

To Your e-mail Subject Message The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP Secretary of State for International Development Department for International Development 1 Palace Street London SW1E 5HE Dear Secretary of State, I believe that preventing vertical transmission of HIV is vital to tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern Africa, where one third of the world’s population who are HIV positive live. No other region in the world has been hit worse by the pandemic. South Africa has more HIV positive people than any other country in the world and Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS. Throughout the region, women are being disproportionately affected and this needs to be central to HIV/AIDS programmes. I would like to see the UN prioritising the battle against HIV infection in infants and young children by implementing a strategy that protects women of a childbearing age and prevents HIV transmission from women living with HIV to their newborn children. We welcome your statement “the UK government is committed to fighting HIV and AIDS and supporting the most vulnerable, especially women and children.” We urge that you push the UN to adopt a new and more effective approach to women’s health. Please show your support to all HIV positive women in southern Africa and their children by: Calling on the UN to assess the global barriers to scaling up vertical transmission services and publish a plan of action to increase coverage and quality of services; Calling on the UN agencies to measure and report progress made on all four prongs of the UN’s strategy on preventing HIV infection in infants and young children at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) in June 2010; Calling on the UN agencies to provide better technical support for governments to better integrate programmes for the prevention of vertical transmission with sexual and reproductive health and rights, family planning, and maternal and child health; Increasing funding for and implement programmes specifically benefiting pregnant women; Increasing funding for programmes aimed at reducing violence against women and girls. Vertical transmission has virtually been eliminated in richer countries, the time has come to do the same for southern Africa. Yours sincerely,