World AIDS Day

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, much of the work that we support is through the multilateral system—we were talking earlier about the Global Fund. Increasing diagnosis rates remains a key priority for not just the Global Fund but other multilateral organs. Through our support for those institutions, we are in turn supporting increased and escalated efforts to boost diagnosis rates.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government give some new publicity to the importance of the prevention of HIV/AIDS? Some people think that it has gone away; we have heard clearly and loudly today that it has not gone away.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is certainly right that, here in the UK, we have seen remarkable progress, and people in the UK can take comfort from the figures that I cited right at the beginning of this exchange. But the same is not true internationally—as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler—where the numbers are really shocking, with 650,000 annual deaths. So prevention has to be, as it is with all preventable diseases, a key priority. I hope that my answer just two questions ago in relation to prevention of early deaths, particularly among women and girls, will have provided some reassurance to the noble Baroness.