JOINT PRESS STATEMENT
UNAIDS, APCASO, APN+

Bangkok, Thailand, 26/06/2020: In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNAIDS, APCASO and APN+ issued a joint statement to emphasize the key role that the HIV response can play in developing and implementing equitable systems for health, including sustainable HIV and COVID-19 programming.

Vulnerable and marginalized people are often the most affected by COVID-19, physically, economically and socially. They are the least able to protect themselves, often living in crowded conditions without sufficient hygiene facilities or on the street. In the context of lockdowns, women have faced increased rates of gender-based violence. Vulnerable and marginalized people are also the least likely to be able to access social protection measures designed to ensure access to basic food, hygiene and livelihood support.

Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director in her remarks at the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board Meeting, held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 23 to 25 June 2020, recalled that the hard-learned lessons of the struggle against AIDS provide an invaluable practical guide as we confront Covid-19. Such lessons are the importance of empowering communities; that human rights do not hinder but enable pandemic response; that pandemic responses must go beyond health interventions, and address economic and social drivers and impacts, including providing social protection; that pandemic responses must tackle inequalities in rights and in access to services.

“The HIV response has demonstrated that where communities are able to fully participate in decision-making and service delivery, and human rights protections are strengthened, HIV outcomes and impacts have improved. UNAIDS will continue to work with regional community networks, to reach the people who are left the furthest behind and to tackle gender inequalities and human rights violations that place people at greater risk of both HIV and COVID-19,” says Eamonn Murphy, UNAIDS Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.

With the joint statement, UNAIDS, APN+ and APCASO emphasize that community-led responses must be a formally recognized element of any country’s responses to HIV and COVID-19. They also call on governments and donors to ensure sufficient funding and political and legal support to networks of people living with HIV and key populations, community-based health services, and community and civil society service and advocacy organizations.

“Beyond fighting the virus, we are also battling social inequities, injustices, and rights violations that make pandemics like COVID-19, and HIV, disproportionately impact and further marginalise key populations and vulnerable communities. We need strengthened communities and civil society working alongside governments, highlighting community, rights, and gender dimensions of issues, as a legitimate part of country health responses,” says RD Marte, APCASO Executive Director.

Communities are at the heart of any effective and equitable public health response. “A robust and enabled civil society was an essential element of the HIV response. As we face the challenges of COVID-19 in the short and longer term, communities and civil society must be resourced and enabled to play a legitimate role in delivering sustainable, gender-based, rights-based responses,” points out Shiba Phurailatpam, Director of the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+).

Contact details 
Michela Polesana, Communications Adviser, UNAIDS Asia and the Pacific, polesanam@unaids.org