HIV (Developing Countries) — [Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 2:30 pm on 19 December 2012.

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Photo of Pauline Latham Pauline Latham Conservative, Mid Derbyshire 2:30, 19 December 2012

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. I will come on to those points in a moment, but they are very important because we do need an integrated approach. It cannot be a stand-alone approach; it has to work together with other things.

The global commission’s findings clearly demonstrate that the myriad laws, across multiple legal systems, have one thing in common: by punishing those who have HIV or the practices that may leave them vulnerable to infection, they serve simply to drive people further away from disclosure, testing and treatment—fostering, not fighting, the global epidemic.

To quote Dr Shereen El Feki, the representative from Egypt on the global commission,

“It is time to say, ‘No more.’ Just as we need new science to help fight the viral epidemic, we need new thinking to combat an epidemic of bad laws that is undermining the precious gains made in HIV awareness, prevention and treatment over the past thirty years.”

I absolutely support her position. She argues, and I agree, that deliberate and malicious transmission of HIV is best prosecuted through existing laws on assault, homicide or bodily harm, rather than the special HIV criminal statutes that have sprung up in recent years and that sweep up those—pregnant women among them—to whom they should never apply.

In relation to pharmaceuticals, existing intellectual property laws require a complete overhaul to ensure that the interests of public health are balanced against incentives for innovation, and that the best new HIV medicines are available to all. Laws that criminalise sex work, drug use, same-sex relations or transgender identity do little to change behaviour aside from discouraging the people most at risk of infection from taking measures to protect themselves and their communities from HIV. Laws against gender-based violence and towards the economic empowerment of women are badly needed, and need to be enforced, to reduce women’s vulnerability to HIV. To work towards making an HIV-free generation a human reality, the world needs to take a joined-up, 21st-century approach to, as I said, one of the greatest public health challenges of our time.

Let me now discuss what my hon. Friend Andrew George mentioned in his intervention. Since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002, it has saved an estimated 7 million lives, disbursed antiretroviral drugs to more than 3 million people, treated 8.6 million cases of TB and distributed 230 million insecticide-treated bed nets.