20 July 2004
A £150m fund will help children whose parents have died from AIDS as part of a new plan to tackle the disease in the developing world.
Prime Minister Tony Blair launched the strategy at a Downing Street breakfast with women and young people who are living with AIDS or have been made vulnerable by it. It will provide the framework for how the government will spend the £1.5bn committed in last week’s Spending Review.
Mr Blair described his personal commitment to providing global leadership to tackle AIDS during the UK presidencies of the EU and G8 in 2005 and beyond. He said:
"Ignoring the issue of AIDS is simply not an option."
The Prime Minister also announced a doubling of the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria over the next three years - increasing the UK donation to more than £150m. He added:
"This is a tragedy that spans personal and global scales and it is appalling that life expectancy in some of the worst affected areas is falling back to pre-1950 levels," said Mr Blair.
"But this is not just about the millions of personal and family tragedies appalling though these are. Already fragile economies are seeing their working age populations destroyed.
"Quite simply, we cannot hope to tackle poverty on a global scale without addressing AIDS. Today’s strategy will place Britain at the forefront of this response."
UNAIDS, which is the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, welcomed the government’s strategy and said it reinforces the UK’s position as a pre-eminent global AIDS funder.
The UK is committed to achieving the internationally agreed Millennium Development target of having halted by 2015, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV and AIDS.
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