Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help provide life-saving treatment to children living with HIV in Africa.
The Government welcomes the Dar Es Salaam Declaration for Action to End AIDS in Children, launched on 1 February. The UK's pledge to the 7th replenishment of the Global Fund will help to save over 1 million lives including by providing medicine for 170,000 mothers to prevent HIV transmission to their babies. We also continue to support UNAIDS to deliver on its mandate to provide effective leadership for the global HIV response and implement the ambitious new Global AIDS Strategy. The UK continues to fund other key international partners, including UNITAID, the Robert Carr Fund, the Global Financing Facility and others on combatting HIV and AIDS in Africa and in children, pregnant women and mothers. These investments are aligned to our commitments in the International Development Strategy on women and girls and global health. Furthermore, our integrated approach ensures that countering HIV is embedded in FCDO's health systems strengthening work and our work to end the preventable deaths of mothers, babies and children, including through our bilateral programming. Our Women's Integrated Sexual Health programme has supported the provision of integrated services in sub-Saharan Africa and the integration of comprehensive sexuality education modules, including HIV prevention, into the national school curriculum in Sierra Leone.