2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS

On 25-27 June 2001, Heads of State and Representatives of Governments met at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) dedicated to HIV/AIDS. The meeting was a historic landmark, highlighting the fact that, in only 20 years, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has caused untold suffering and death worldwide, destroying entire communities, undoing development gains, and posing a serious threat to whole continents, as is currently the case for Africa. But UNGASS also served to remind the world that there is hope. With sufficient will and resources, communities and countries could change the course of the epidemic.

Heads of State and Representatives of Governments issued the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. This Declaration sets out a series of national targets and global actions to reverse the epidemic and Member States are required to submit Country Progress reports to the UNAIDS Secretariat every two years.

Although the Declaration sets a wide agenda, our priorities should be clear:

• First, to ensure that people everywhere — particularly the young — know what to do to avoid infection;

• S e c o n d, to stop perhaps the most tragic of all forms of HIV transmission — from mother to child;

• T h i rd, to provide treatment to all those infected;

• Fourth, to redouble the search for a vaccine, as well as a cure; and

• Fifth, to care for all whose lives have been devastated by AIDS, particularly more that 13 million orphans.

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2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIVAIDS.pdf