Honourable Minister Dr Alexandre Padilha,
IAS President Beatriz Grinsztejn,
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima,
My colleague WHO Regional Director Dr Jarbas Barbosa,
Distinguished Ministers,
Friends and colleagues,
And most importantly, members of communities from around the world,
Bom dia! It’s an honour to be here.
I thank Brazil for its hospitality, and President Lula in particular for his leadership in the fight against HIV.
We often talk about the need for political will. President Lula doesn’t just talk about it – he walks the talk.
He has defended free HIV treatment, helped to make medicines affordable, supported production with partners in Africa, helped launch UNITAID and protected human rights.
For more than four decades, HIV has tested humanity – not only our science, but our solidarity.
And again and again, when the world predicted failure, communities proved it wrong.
Scientists, working hand in hand with communities, turned a fatal diagnosis into a manageable condition.
Countries expanded treatment to tens of millions of people.
Communities confronted stigma, demanded justice, and changed the course of history.
That is the story of the past.
But we are here to decide the story of the future.
Because today, the HIV response faces its most serious disruption in a generation, as my sister Winnie indicated earlier.
But we have not come to Rio to mourn what is at risk.
We have come to defend it – and to build what comes next.
That is the meaning of the theme of this conference: Rethink. Rebuild. Rise.
We must rethink how we deliver services – making them more integrated, more people-centred, and more resilient.
We must rebuild partnerships that put countries and communities at the centre of every decision.
And we must rise – not by lowering our ambition, but by raising it.
The goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 is still within our reach.
But only if we are willing to act differently.
Today, I am pleased to launch the mid-term assessment of the WHO Global Health Sector Strategies on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections for 2022 to 2030.
It tells two stories.
It shows what is possible when countries invest in health, in science, and in communities.
New infections and AIDS-related deaths have dropped dramatically, testing and treatment have expanded, and new technologies including long-acting injectables offer huge potential.
But it also shows how quickly that progress can be reversed – by funding cuts, by emergencies, and by inequalities.
To help countries in this next phase, WHO is today releasing new HIV surveillance guidance, to strengthen routine surveillance systems and help countries turn their own data into public health action.
We are also publishing new consolidated HIV service delivery guidelines, to help countries deliver treatment and long-term care that is simpler, more integrated, more equitable, and more people-centred.
And we remain committed to helping countries strengthen primary health care and universal health coverage – so that HIV services are not isolated, but woven into the fabric of stronger health systems.
WHO will keep accelerating access to innovation – from long-acting prevention and treatment, to new diagnostics, digital tools and better data.
Because a scientific breakthrough only matters when it becomes a public health breakthrough – for everyone, everywhere, and not only for those who can afford it.
We will continue to integrate HIV with services for tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, sexual and reproductive health, mental health and noncommunicable diseases.
Because people do not live their lives one disease at a time – and their care should not be delivered that way either.
And we will accelerate progress towards eliminating vertical transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B – so that every child, everywhere, has the chance to be born free of preventable infection, and to thrive.
But no strategy will succeed without communities.
Communities have never been an optional partner in this response.
They are its architects.
They reach the people health systems cannot.
They defend human rights.
They hold all of us to account. We heard you clearly when you protested earlier.
And they remind us, again and again, that behind every statistic is a person with a name, a family, and a future.
The next chapter of the HIV response must be written not only for communities but with communities.
Dear colleagues and friends,
The history of HIV has always been written by people who refused to accept that suffering was inevitable.
Every breakthrough –every advance in treatment, in prevention, in access, in the fight against discrimination – came because someone dared to imagine something better, and then fought to make it real.
That same courage is what this moment demands of us.
So let Rio be remembered not as the place where we counted our losses, but as the place where we chose to rebuild with courage, to rise together, and to reaffirm that every life has equal value.
So my ask of everyone in this room and beyond this room is simple:
First, fund the response – domestically and internationally.
Second, defend the community-led organizations that reach the people no one else can reach.
Third, repeal the laws that criminalize people for who they are or what they need to survive.
And fourth, refuse to treat this as a finished fight. It is not finished.
Progress is real, but it is fragile, and fragile things need attention, as you know.
We have the science. We have the tools. We have proof, in country after country, that this epidemic can be beaten back.
What we need now is what has always mattered most in this fight: the will to stay united, and the determination to finish what we started.
Muito obrigado. Thank you.