A January the long standing UNAIDS

History

In January the long standing UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, stood down from his post to be replaced by Michel Sidibé. Sidibé began with the promise...

“I will do everything in my power to bring around an AIDS reversal – where less people become infected than are put on treatment.”⁴⁸

The beginning of the year also saw the HIV/AIDS crisis worsen in Zimbabwe with 400 people dying a day from AIDS,⁴⁹ the closure of two of the largest hospitals in Harare,⁵⁰ and a black market for ARVs springing up.⁵¹ Later in the year Zimbabwe was granted $37.9 million by the Global Fund for its fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, to be administered by the UN.⁵²

Barack Obama at the Las Vegas Presidential Forum in 2007

In January, newly elected President Obama took the opportunity to announce the reversion of the global gag rule, legislation first brought under Ronald Reagan that had impeded funds from going to organisations which provide services linked with abortion.⁵³ This accompanied a promise to lift the U.S’ travel ban, which had, for 22 years, prevented people with HIV/AIDS from entering the U.S. The lifting of the ban was finally announced in October when Obama formally declared it would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period.⁵⁴

February brought the news that a microbicide trial had not proved as effective as hoped, with the results from the PRO 2000 trial shown to be not statistically significant.^{55 56}

In March a report from the Washington DC Health Department revealed that Washington DC had a higher rate of HIV than West Africa with 3% prevalence -enough to describe it as a ‘severe and generalised epidemic.’⁵⁷

Also in March the Pope warned against condom use, stating that condoms actually ‘increase’ the problem of AIDS. He called the HIV/AIDS epidemic...