Keir Starmer: Protect what’s left of the UK’s funding to end the Aids pandemic – UK Times

Dear Prime Minister,

We urge you to protect the remaining British funding for the global HIV response, including for game-changing new drugs, in order to seize the incredible opportunity to end the Aids pandemic within the next few years.

Building on your commitment to end HIV transmissions in the UK within a generation, we urge you to extend this to the rest of the world and lead the way in ending Aids by 2030.

In 2024, the world was on track to meet this target. But this year has seen unprecedented international aid cuts from multiple countries, which have put this progress at risk.

Unless global HIV funding is protected, there will be more than four million additional deaths and infections by 2030 – and a doubling of the number of medication-resistant strains, bringing new dangers to all of us.

Despite being so close to the finishing line, failure to maintain global funding and progress means we could return to the height of the crisis two decades ago. Then, people were dying en masse and healthcare systems around the world were overwhelmed.

The UK’s recent pledge of £850m to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria is a significant commitment to the global response. However, the UK pledge was still a £150m reduction on its previous pledge in 2022, which could cost an additional 255,000 lives over the next three years.

In the coming weeks, your government will confirm funding decisions for three small but critical global institutions to fulfil essential roles in the global HIV response: UNAids, Unitaid and the Robert Carr Fund.

A combined contribution needed for these institutions over the next three years from the UK would cost less than £1.30 per adult per year.

We call on you to:

1. Champion as a British priority the goal of ending Aids globally by 2030 and the new HIV innovations, such as lenacapavir, that make this goal a realistic possibility.

2. Provide sufficient funding for UNAids, Unitaid and the Robert Carr Fund.

3. Ensure British funding is directed where it is most needed: to communities most impacted by HIV.

Yours sincerely,

Geordie Greig

Editor-in-chief, The Independent

Signed by:

Anne Aslett – CEO, Elton John Aids Foundation

Baroness Barker – Liberal Democrat peer

Paula Barker MP – Labour MP

Lorraine Beavers – Labour MP

Lord Guy Black – Conservative peer

Sian Berry – Green MP

Lord Cashman – Labour peer

Ellie Chowns – Green MP

Simon Cooke – CEO, MSI Choices

Susan Cole – Phoenix Health Movement CIC

Robbie Currie – CEO, National AIDS Trust

Nick Dearden – director, Global Justice Now

Carla Denyer – Green MP

Charlie Gamble – CEO, Tackle Africa

Amanda Hack – Labour MP

Patrick Kinemo – Tanzania country director, MSI Choices

Sir Andrew Mitchell – Conservative MP

David Mundell – Conservative MP

Kate Osborne – Labour MP

John Plastow – executive director, Frontline Aids

Mike Podmore – CEO, StopAIDS

Adrian Ramsay – Green MP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy – Labour MP

Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury – Labour peer

Charles SSonko – infectious diseases lead, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)

Dr Alice Welbourn – founding director, Salamander Trust

Nadia Whittome – Labour MP