UK Pledges £6 billion To Improve Health Systems

Secretary of State for International Development of United Kingdom, Douglas Alexander, has announced that the government will provide six billion British pounds or $11.8 billion, over seven years to improve health services and systems in developing countries to fight HIVdefine/AIDS. This seven-year strategy aims to ensure universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

This Universal Access strategy will help in increasing coverage of services for injection drug users, meeting the needs of AIDS orphans and children affected by the disease and working with other groups to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral treatment. It will also help in preventing mother-to-child HIVdefine transmission and increasing the availability of family planning services, including male and female condoms.

A commitment to working with other donor countries and organizations to help bring down the price of antiretroviral drugs in the world's poorest countries is the key to this strategy. The priority is to provide services for children. Biological methods of HIV prevention will be also highlighted, and the UK government has committed itself to increasing its funding of HIV vaccine and microbicide research by 50%.

The UK government is the second biggest donor to HIV prevention and treatment programs in resource limited settings. Launching the strategy, Douglas Alexander said, “I am proud of the UK’s international leadership on HIV and AIDS. This strategy demonstrates the UK government is committed to remaining at the forefront of the global fight against HIV and AIDS.”

"If we are to achieve universal access, and to halt and reverse the spread of AIDS, the evidence demonstrates that we require a long-term approach, across a range of health systems and services," said Douglas Alexander. In order to utilize the sum allocated in the best possible way. There is a need for the better coordination of HIV prevention and treatment services. “We will continue to support services that reach those most at risk, are tailored to the reality of people’s lives and address the discrimination that makes them more vulnerable”, he said .

While the UK is committed to the new Achieving Universal Access strategy, there have been problems in some developing nations with regard to gay and lesbian HIV positivedefine people. For example, a Ugandan official today stated that no money would be spent on prevention among men who have sex with men, supposedly due to a lack of funds. Many of the countries that will benefit from the £6bn pledged are home to state-sponsored homophobia.

Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said, ”Tackling HIV/AIDS is a vital and urgent challenge. Today's strategy paper is sensible and constructive. I particularly welcome the focus on prevention, and on the need to strengthen comprehensive health systems in poor countries. But the government need to be more self-critical about whether we are actually getting the results we expect, both on behalf of the people we are trying to help, and of British taxpayers. We also need specific interim country-level targets so that leaders can be held to account on their promise to deliver universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment by 2010."