People Living with HIV and AIDS

Today, organisations of people living with HIV are a key driving force in the response to HIV/AIDS, giving a personal power to people living positively with the virus, and inspiring others to action.

"AIDS is now a medically manageable condition. Yet too many people in resource-poor settings are still dying from it. If we all kept our promises - our promises of money and resources, and our promises of support and acceptance - we could radically curtail, and perhaps even end, death and suffering from AIDS. So let us take accountability seriously in this epidemic - of our governments, international agencies and of ourselves." --Mr Justice Edwin Cameron

Background

Today, organisations of people living with HIV are a key driving force in the response to HIV/AIDS, giving a personal power to people living positively with the virus, and inspiring others to action.

In the past, people who were living positively with HIV, managing their lifestyles and continuing to be productive and valued members of society, had great difficulty in getting their perspectives heard in the debates on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Many organisations claimed to speak for positive people, and many spoke at them.

Today, people living positively with HIV/AIDS have many organisations which are articulating their viewpoints and needs, and which offer care and support to the infected and affected. They are in the forefront of the debate in global and local organisations which are devising strategies to press people to Keep the Promise and advocate for Universal Access by 2010.

The United Nations’ programme on the epidemic (UNAIDS) supports organisations on the principle of Greater Involvement of People Living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (GIPA), which was adopted at the Paris AIDS Summit in 1994.

To read more, please see PLWHA in action on WAD