On September 25, 2014, TDN representatives attended a historic meeting “Fast Track: Ending AIDS Epidemic by 2030” during the 69th General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York invited by Civil Society Partnership, a group associated to UNAIDS New York Liaison Office. “You’re part of a very dynamic organization,” said Nicholas Goude, a high-ranking UNAIDS officer, describing the style of Transdiaspora Network in creating a new frontier on the field of HIV prevention as he greeted our representatives Ariel Rojas (President & Founder), Angela Mora-Vargas (Senior Executive Manager), Jasmine Knowles (Program Associate Consultant), and Glenda del Monte Escalante (Cultural Ambassador).

UNAIDS is focused on expanding access to HIV treatment and prevention programs in order to reduce new HIV infections from 2.1 million in 2010 to 200,000 in 2030, and this meeting aims to secure a broad commitment from countries and international partners for intensified and focused action up to 2020 in order to achieve the ambition of ending AIDS by 2030. Key elements of this commitment would include support and agreement to develop harmonized country acceleration plans that build accountability systems and address critical gaps such as young women and key populations. We hope to galvanize the global response towards zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero related deaths and the 90-90-90 targets for treatment. The magic numbers are 90-90-90 and are informed by growing clinical evidence showing that HIV treatment equals prevention because putting people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces new infections.

The new treatment targets seek that, by 2020:

• 90% of people living with HIV get diagnosed
• 90% of people diagnosed with HIV will be on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART)
• 90% of people on ART achieve durable viral suppression

The 90-90-90 plan, unveiled by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) earlier this year, seeks to halt the spread of HIV by 2020 and to end the epidemic by 2030. While this is the most ambitious strategy to eliminate HIV yet, experts such as Dr Lucy Matu, director of technical services at the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation in Kenya, says that it can be done.

While HIV can affect anyone in any place across the globe, there were 30 countries that accounted for more than 80% of all new infections in 2013. Last year, South Africa had the largest number of new HIV infections — 16% of the world’s total. Next in line were Nigeria with 10 %, Uganda with 7%, and India with 6%. The U.S. accounted for 2% of all new infections, among the highest of all developed countries and comparable to infection rates in Cameroon, Malawi, and Brazil. During the next five years, Fast Track hopes to help the most affected countries pinpoint locations and populations where there are higher prevalences of HIV and to speed up the delivery of health services to them.

The side-event, co-hosted by Ghana and Switzerland in collaboration with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), included panelists Jan Eliasson, UN-Deputy Secretary General; Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS Executive Director;

John Kerry, US Secretary of State; Ira Manzinger, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI); Teresia Otieno, member of the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW); John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana; Didier Burkhalter, President of Switzerland; Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, and Hinda Déby, First Lady of Chad.