Leading figures in the HIV response have endorsed a call for immediate access to antiretroviral therapy for all people upon diagnosis with HIV, on the opening day of the Eighth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2015) in Vancouver, Canada.
The Vancouver Consensus Statement has been endorsed by leaders of major agencies including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and is intended to place pressure on donors and governments to support expanded HIV treatment and prevention.
The statement calls for immediate access to antiretrovirals and for access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for those at high risk of HIV exposure, and urges rapid progress towards the implementation of new scientific evidence.
Professor Chris Beyrer of Johns Hopkins University told delegates, “Let this be the conference where the question of when to start treatment stops being a scientific question and starts being a question of finance and political will.”