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

D.ear Prime Minister,

We demand that you protect Britain’s remaining funding for the global HIV response, including game-changing new medicines, to seize the incredible opportunity to end the Aids epidemic within the next few years.

Building on your commitment to end HIV transmission in the UK within a generation, we challenge you to extend this to the rest of the world and lead to ending AIDS by 2030.

In 2024, the world was on track to achieve this goal. But this year has seen unprecedented cuts in international aid from many countries, putting that progress at risk.

Unless global HIV finances are protected, more than four million additional deaths and infections will occur by 2030 and the number of drug-resistant strains will double, posing new dangers for us all.

Despite being so close to the finish line, failure to sustain global funding and progress means we could be back to the peak of the crisis two decades ago. Then people were dying en masse and healthcare systems were collapsing around the world.

The UK’s recent commitment of £850 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a significant commitment to the global response. However, the UK’s commitment still represented a £150 million reduction from its previous commitment in 2022, which could cost an additional 255,000 lives over the next three years.

In the coming weeks, your government will approve funding decisions for three small but critical global institutions that will play important roles in the global HIV response: UNAids, Unitaid and the Robert Carr Fund.

The total UK contribution to these institutions over the next three years will cost less than £1.30 per adult per year.

We invite you to:

1. The goal of ending AIDS globally by 2030 is Britain’s priority, and new HIV innovations such as lenacapavir are turning this target into a realistic possibility.

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

3. Ensure British funding is directed to where it is needed most – the communities most affected by HIV.

Kind regards,

Geordie Greig

Editor-in-Chief of The Independent

Signatory:

Anne Aslett – CEO, Elton John Aids Foundation

Baroness Barker – Liberal Democrat peer

MP Paula Barker – Labor Party Member of Parliament

Beavers of Lorraine – Labor Party Member of Parliament

Lord Guy Black – Conservative peer

Sian Berry – Green MP

Lord Cashman – Worker peer

Ellie Chowns – Green MP

Simon Cooke – CEO, MSI Selections

Susan Cole – Phoenix Health Movement CIC

Robbie Currie – CEO, National AIDS Foundation

Nick Dear – Director, Global Justice Now

Carla Denyer – Green MP

Charlie Gamble – CEO, Tackle Africa

Amanda Hack – Labor Party Member of Parliament

Patrick Kinemo – Tanzania country director, MSI Choices

Sir Andrew Mitchell – Conservative MP

David Mundell – Conservative MP

Kate Osborne – Labor Party Member of Parliament

John Plastow – Executive Director, Frontline Aids

Mike Podmore – CEO, StopAIDS

Adrian Ramsey – Green MP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy – Labor Party Member of Parliament

Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury – Worker peer

Charles SSonko – infectious diseases are leading, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Doctor Alice Welbourn – founding director, Salamander Trust

Nadia Whittome – Labor Party Member of Parliament