Country Perspectives On AIDS And Disabilities At International AIDS Conference (Austria)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Around 650 million people, or 10% of the world's population, have a disability. Although people with disabilities are found within the populations at higher risk of exposure to HIV, not much attention has been paid in the past to the relationship between HIV and disability.
Persons with disabilities experience all of the risk factors associated with HIV, and are often at increased risk because of poverty, severely limited access to education and health care, lack of information and resources, lack of legal protection, increased risk of violence and rape, vulnerability to substance abuse, and stigma.
In order to raise awareness on these gaps, as well as provide a platform for exchange of good practice and innovative advocacy ideas, there was a disability and HIV networking zone at this year's International AIDS Conference and a range of events on the conference calendar.
On 21 July a satellite session was convened by Health Canada in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Disability and Development (GPDD), to look more specifically at the integration of HIV and disability issues into HIV programmes at the country level.
Dr Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS was one of the keynote speakers at the event.
He described UNAIDS' work with WHO and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to develop a Policy Brief on HIV and Disability. This was achieved with valuable inputs from organizations representing people with a disability, networks of people living with HIV, UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights, and a number of others.
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Source: UNAIDS