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After more than


ten years working for the South Edinburgh Partnership and then in the Partnership &


Information team for Services for Communities, Council stalwart Madelaine Traynor has retired. Madelaine will be sorely missed by


her colleagues and the many people she has helped over the years. We wish her all the best in her retirement


Earlier this month I met with Rachel Crockett, a very committed member of the Student Stop AIDS Campaign at Edinburgh University in the constituency. The campaign comprises a network of


students across the UK who believe that the world's response to the HIV pandemic is insufficient and unacceptable and who work to bring about changes to national and international policy.


This is an area which I have been keeping a


close eye on. My Scottish colleague Pamela Nash MP has taken on the role of Chair of the APPG on HIV/AIDS since the sad death of David Cairns last year.


With this year marking the 30th anniversary


of the identification of the HIV virus, Rachel explained that it has been poignant that there have been a number of breakthroughs in AIDS treatment this year. At a recent UN High Level meeting on HIV and AIDS, world leaders for the first time agreed clear targets of putting 15 million people onto HIV treatment by 2014 and I'm pleased to say that this was due in no small part to the leadership of the UK. Rachel also provided me with a copy of a ground breaking study published in May which shows that when people are on HIV treatment they are 96% less likely to become infected. It is clear that world leaders need to scale up their efforts for programmes which we know work.


Data from the 2010 UNAIDS Reports on the Global AIDS epidemic shows that an estimated 2.6 million people became newly infected with HIV, nearly 20% fewer than the 3.1 million people affected in 1999.


At the end of 2010, 34 million people were estimated to be living with HIV, up slightly from 33.4 million in 2009. This is in large part due to more people living longer as access to antiretroviral therapy increases.


In 2009, 1.8 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses, nearly one-fifth lower than the 2.1 million people who died in 2004.


The results could see an end to children being bornwith HIV by 2015, and could save an extra 7 million lives and prevent 12 million new infections by 2020. Thanks for Rachel for taking the time to


meet with me to discuss these issues. Many people in South Edinburgh care a great deal about tackling HIV and AIDS. No one country can hope to tackle the spread of these illnesses alone and the UK is crucial in driving this agenda forward.


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