In 2017, It's Not Too Late for an AIDS-Free Generation
How We Lost the War Against AIDS, the documentary film described previously, will be released in July 2018 at the 22nd International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. It will be preceded by a series of Public Service Announcements in the first half of 2018. The theme of the PSAs will be It's Not Too Late... with each PSA highlighting an issue that can, and must, be addressed now in order to successfully end AIDS as a public health threat by the year 2030.
PSAs focused on the epidemic generally were described previously. Several other PSAs will be focused on ensuring that the next generation is free of AIDS:
It's not too late to ensure that children are free of AIDS
Religious institutions and faith communities have had a mixed history in the AIDS epidemic. On the one hand, religious institutions were some of the earliest to provide care and services to people living with HIV, and they continue to play a vital role today. Literally, millions of people depend on services provided by religious institutions. On the other hand, stigma toward people living with HIV and toward marginalized populations often has a religious basis. Even today, many people involved in fighting AIDS cite religion as a barrier rather than as an asset. At the same time, AIDS leaders often say that it will be impossible to end AIDS without a strong contribution from faith leaders and communities.We are currently falling short of the targets set in the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, with much lower treatment rates for children than adults. But it is well within our capabilities to increase the effort and successfully eliminate childhood HIV.
It's not too late to empower girls to control their own lives
In many parts of the world, adolescent girls and young women are at the greatest risk of HIV infection. In 2015, PEPFAR launched the DREAMS program, aiming to dramatically reduce the new infection rate in this high risk population. DREAMS has made good progress and must be continued in the next phase of PEPFAR.
It's not too late to empower young people to have a future without AIDS
One of the major risks identified at this year's AIDS conference in Paris was the rapidly growing youth population in high-burden countries. The key is prevention, ensuring that young people know about, and have access to, the full range of prevention options, including delay of sexual debut, reduction in sexual partners, condoms, pre-exposure prophylaxis, needle exchange programs, and other options as they are developed.
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