Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to end HIV and AIDS in women and girls around the world.

As part of efforts to end the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children, the UK funds UNAIDS, the Robert Carr Fund and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. On 8th December, Minister of State Mitchell met with Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, and discussed our shared priorities on gender equality and the importance of this for progress on HIV. Our recent £1 billion pledge to the Global Fund will help to save over 1 million lives and avert over 28 million new infections across the three diseases, and will help to provide medicine for 170,000 mothers to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies. The UK also funds research on HIV and AIDS, such as the development, through the International Partnership on Microbiocides, of the dapivirine ring. This is the first long-acting HIV prevention product for women of its kind. The UK also invests in health systems strengthening to improve access to quality health services for all, including services for the prevention of HIV and to reduce AIDS related deaths.