Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in the Middle East on how the UK can help tackle changes in the rate of HIV transmission in the region.

The UK funds organisations that tackle the HIV epidemic globally including the Global Fund, UNAIDS and the Robert Carr Foundation. The Global Fund is a high performing organisation that has saved 50 million lives to date. The UK is the organisation's third largest donor historically, investing over £4.5 billion since 2002. The Global Fund Middle East Response Initiative was designed to provide essential HIV, TB and malaria services to key and vulnerable populations including refugees, internally displaced people, women, children and other populations in Iraq, OPTs, Syria and Yemen, as well as to Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The UK continues to encourage close regional cooperation to tackle the rate of HIV transmission in the Middle East.