 Felly, ddigonwch. Rwyf gwirionedd businessesion yn ddefnyddio cerfion 14820 yn ddifuju Emma Harper ar y 30 lŷ, gyda'r ddaf yn ddechrau i ddim yn ni gweithio, ac mae rhywf wedi dda iawn i ddatblygu inni i ddefnyddio chi i ddedechrau gwerthfawr, iti ddim i ddim yn ei ddedechrau i ddifusio y ddifu의u i ddigonwch. 1st 2nd 1st Mark's World AIDS Day. I'm pleased to be able to reflect on the importance of this day on the 30th anniversary this year. Today is an opportunity to raise awareness of HIV and the impact that the stigma and the prejudice surrounding HIV and AIDS has on the people diagnosed and undiagnosed. Firstly, I'd like to thank my colleagues across chamber who have supported my motion and for taking part in this debate. I welcome those in the gallery here today and those who are watching online. The debate allows the opportunity to reflect on the past 30 years of infection, detection, diagnosis and now successful treatment. Today in Scotland, there are 5,134 people who are diagnosed with HIV and 350 new cases each year are diagnosed. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get the message across to everyone that, once a person has received a diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and once a person becomes undetectable in their viral load of the HIV virus, they cannot pass on the virus through sexual transmission. Last week in Parliament, I met with Murray, Cheek and Grant Sugden from Waverly Care to discuss their work. Waverly Care, alongside NHS boards across Scotland, are doing important work to promote the importance of people knowing the HIV status, as well as to promote the undetectable equals untransmissible U equals U message, which is a key focus of this 30th anniversary world AIDS day. Again, that means that if a person living with HIV achieves and maintains an undetectable viral load by adhering to their medication, the HIV virus cannot be passed on through sex. In preparation for this debate, I reflected on my time at Cedar Sinai Medical Centre in the heart of West Hollywood in Los Angeles in the early 90s, and I contacted my former colleague Jackie Engstrand, who worked as a research nurse in the dedicated HIV and AIDS unit, known as the unit, set up in 1991. That was when the model of care for people with AIDS focused on a palliative end-of-life care approach. By the early 90s, we knew that HIV was a bloodborne virus that weakened the immune system, and when left untreated, people had a range of potentially deadly infections. Back then, I looked after patients with a rare skin condition called caposi sarcoma, as well as pneumocystis crinine pneumonia patients, and that's a rare lung condition infection that is often one of the infections seen in people with HIV. The stigma associated with HIV was evident. I recall people referring to the disease as gay-related immune disease, grid, which was distressing for patients, but we have made progress since then. As a nurse, I knew that the HIV virus was transmitted through sex and sharing of needles. It was not just a gay man's disease. While I was in the pre-op area in the operating room one day, I had an interesting experience when I witnessed a colleague's nervous, anxious behaviour when he was speaking to a patient ahead of the surgery and this patient had a diagnosis of AIDS. I was dumb funnored when my anaesthetist colleague, an educated, well-trained, very knowledgeable doctor, entered the pre-op area wearing a gown, double gloves, a mask and a face shield, and he spoke to the patient from one metre away without touching the patient. He looked like he was in one of the viral protective breakout gear seen in the movies. HIV is not transmitted through airborne route. Standard precautions are required. No double gloves are needed. I was shocked to hear from Nathan Sparling of HIV Scotland only yesterday when he said that double-gloving recommendations are still made today when dealing with our elderly HIV-positive persons. The prejudice and stigma still remains as persons with HIV are still placed on the end of dental lists or clinic reviews. That is not needed. Standard precautions are adequate when dealing with any blood-borne virus patient. I am therefore pleased to endorse and indeed encourage health professionals across Scotland to view HIV Scotland's road map to zero document, which contains important information about tackling stigma. At a World AIDS Day event in Parliament last week, I sat next to one of the poets, James McAbraham, who recited his poem from a wee book called Disclosures Rewriting the Narrative about HIV. In James' poem, the opening lines describe how it had been such a long time since someone touched him. It was James' poem that reminded me of that experience in the pre-op area 28 years ago. Presiding Officer, as time progresses, new drugs started to become available. Words like protease inhibitors, antiretrovirals and heart therapy have become common in our vocabulary. While in Los Angeles a famous basketball player, Magic Johnson, announced that he had an undetectable viral load, undetectable was not a cure as the media touted, undetectable equals untransmissible. I must remember that. He was a heterosexual man and this was big huge news. Magic Johnson could not pass on the virus through sex. This is the message that we need to share today, undetectable equals untransmissible. I am pleased that Scotland is a leader in the fight against HIV and AIDS. We are meeting the United Nations 90-90-90 targets. Those are that by 2020, 90 per cent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status and 90 per cent of all people diagnosed with HIV will have access to sustained antiretroviral therapy and that 90 per cent of the people in receipt of the antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression or a negative viral load. If we can find, reach and test the 10 per cent of Scots that have not been tested, we can initiate treatment so that the virus will not be passed on and shared. Once a diagnosis is made, it means that treatment can begin. Today in Scotland, HIV is considered a manageable long-term health condition with treatments such as pre-exposure prophylaxis, PREP, that allows people to be protected. Testing has a central role to play in reducing the number of infections, particularly by helping to reduce the proportion of HIV cases that are undiagnosed. Testing is as simple as a finger prick blood sample. Results are known immediately. People can be tested at sexual health clinics, GP surgeries, home self-testing is available and community projects also. In conclusion, I would like to emphasise the importance of the need to fight stigma attached to the disease. It has a damaging impact on the physical and mental health of the people who live with HIV and those who think about being tested. I look forward to hearing my colleagues' contributions in this debate, and once more I would like to reiterate that U equals U, undetectable equals untransmitable. I encourage everyone to know their HIV status. I ask those in the public gallery, not to show appreciation or otherwise. We move to the open debate. The speeches are four minutes please. Miles Briggs followed by Ruth Maguire. I would like to start by thanking Emma Harper for bringing this member's debate to Parliament today. I am pleased to be taking part in the debate on the 30th world aid day, which raises awareness of HIV and challenges stigma. There is a chance for all of us to reflect on the progress that has been made to tackle HIV and AIDS. Since the first world aid day in December in 1988, when I was just five, there has been huge progress to end the AIDS epidemic and to tackle stigma that we have seen. Early diagnosis and proper treatment, HIV is now manageable long-term and is a long-term health condition. I think that we need to talk about that more in medical professionals. As Emma Harper rightly stated, as well as being manageable, HIV is also untransmitable for people who achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load. I very much agree with Emma Harper that the U equals U message needs to get out there. It is crucial for an improved understanding of HIV, a reduction in stigma, as well as achieving fewer new infections in the future. Stigma is probably the biggest obstacle in the fight against AIDS, HIV, and making people living with HIV feel isolated is something that I have spoken to and often tell me, as well as stopping people from being tested and accessing treatments. I would like to say a huge thank you to HIV Scotland for all their excellent work that they are doing to change the narrative around HIV and AIDS and congratulate them on the launch of their new book, which has been mentioned already, Disclosures Rewriting the Narrative about HIV. I am very thankful for them for giving me a copy of that last week. I have not had a chance to read it, but I am looking forward to it over our winter recess. I find it shocking that the recent survey by Waverly Care revealed that 14 per cent of respondents did not have sympathy for those living with HIV. That reinforces to me that more still very much needs to be done to tackle stigma and something that I hope that this debate helps to highlight. Last week, Deputy Presiding Officer in the House of Commons, Labour MP Lloyd Russell Moyle announced to the nation that he is HIV positive. In his speech, Mr Russell Moyle spoke about when he was diagnosed as HIV positive 10 years ago and everything that went through his head during that time. He also talked about how the medication that he now takes means that he can be healthy, have any partner that he may have, can be protected and promoting the message of undetectable equals untransmittable. Mr Moyle's bravery in talking about his own diagnosis and his message that the status of being HIV positive does not define a person will go a long way in reducing the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS. I repeat his important message and that which Emma Harper has also made today, that people need to look towards their status and be tested and, instead of not doing so out of fear, it is better to live in knowledge than die in fear. I fully support the goal of having zero new infections in Scotland. I believe that here in Scotland we can actually work to achieve that. In 2017, there were 368 new cases of HIV reported, so far since September, there have been 218 new cases reported in Scotland. For the United Nations fast-track strategy 1990-90 targets, in Scotland it is estimated that 87 per cent of infected people know their status and that those who do 98 per cent are now receiving anti-retroviral treatment, around 97 per cent have achieved viral suppression. This debate is a really important one. I think that I am pleased to take part in it every year because Scotland quite rightly can lead the way in eliminating new HIV infections. However, to do that more work still needs to be done, firstly and most importantly, to fight the stigma around HIV and AIDS so that more people have the confidence to be tested and we can stop the spread of the virus. Finally, just to close, I thank Emma Harper once again for bringing this forward and looking forward to listening to other contributions this afternoon. Ruth Maguire, followed by Mary Fee. Presiding Officer, I thank Emma Harper for securing this important debate on World AIDS Day and giving us the opportunity to come together across the chamber and show support for people living with HIV and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. I would like to use my time today to speak about women and HIV and give particular mention to the excellent report by the Terence Higgins Trust, Women and HIV Invisible No Longer. I am also grateful to Waverly Care for their briefing on the work of the African health project. Waverly Care's African health project was established in 2003 to meet the needs of Scotland's growing African population. The project is there to provide information, advice and support to Africans living in Scotland. Despite a lack of a specific figure for Scotland, we know that HIV disproportionately affects African communities and that late diagnosis, which can lead to health complications, is common. Those inequalities are largely driven by HIV stigma and a lack of awareness about the condition, which can sometimes be reinforced by cultural and religious beliefs. For Africans living with HIV, the stigma can lead to isolation from the community, a breakdown of relationships and negative impacts on their physical and mental health. In particular, the project aims to improve health and wellbeing and to support people to access healthcare services, including HIV treatment and care. Waverly Care works closely with community groups, businesses and churches to raise awareness of HIV and to promote sexual health. That includes making condoms freely available in community venues in areas where they work alongside offering testing for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Waverly Care also supports people with other issues affecting the African community, including immigration, housing, managing money and employment. Women make up one third of all people living with HIV and were one quarter of new HIV diagnosis in 2016. Despite that, it is fair to say that women living with HIV have not been particularly visible in the narrative and the response to HIV in the UK and that we do not know very much about what it means to be a woman living with HIV in Scotland. From my constituency work and as reported in the women HIV invisible no longer, we do know that HIV services that do exist are rarely designed with women in mind. People living with and affected by HIV are not a homogenous group, and to treat them as such will result in services that do not meet their needs and, worse, could risk not reaching those for whom the safety net already has massive holes. It is estimated that 1,300 women are living with undiagnosed HIV. Improving rates of early diagnosis is critical both for individual and public health, and HIV testing is key to achieving that. I echo Emma Harper's call for everybody to know their HIV status. If diagnosed early and on effective treatments, people with HIV can live a normal life expectancy. When diagnosed at a late stage, if significant damage to the immune system has already occurred, people have poorer health outcomes and potentially a much reduced life expectancy. Further more, if someone is unaware of their HIV status and not on treatment, it is much more likely that they will unknowingly pass on HIV to others. The HIV prevention drug PREP is almost exclusively accessed by men. In the first eight months that PREP was available on the NHS in Scotland, only 10 out of 1,299 people to access the drug were women. Waverly Care have told me that one in 21 heterosexual African women in Scotland are living with HIV, and we know that a third of all people living with HIV are women. In closing, can I ask the Scottish Government what is being done to redress the imbalance of access to the drug, and can I also offer to bring together interested parties to assist the Government in that work if it would be helpful? Mary Fee, followed by Patrick Harvie. I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I thank Emma Harper for bringing it to the chamber today. Last Saturday, December 1, marked the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day. That landmark provides us an opportunity as parliamentarians and, as Scottish society more broadly, to reflect on the significant progress that we have made over the past three decades in the fight against HIV through prevention, treatment and destigmatisation. As we have heard today, HIV is now a manageable long-term health condition. With proper treatment, individuals can live long, healthy lives and experience either very few or no adverse symptoms of their illness. However, that was not always the case. During the 1980s, when the diagnosis of HIV increased substantially in a short period, the virus was viewed as a death sentence by many, perceived to significantly shorten the lives of those diagnosed. The story of HIV in Scotland and across the UK was shaped by homophobic and moralistic rhetoric. Throughout the 1980s, HIV was labelled the gay plague, as homophobic misinformation spread quickly. It was a commonly held view that HIV was primarily spread by men having sex with men. The original public health campaign to raise awareness of HIV that emerged during the 1980s included TV advertisements, posters and pamphlets, frequently evoking the imagery of intimate homosexual relationships. Those images fed into wider homophobic societal assumptions that homosexuality was wrong and it was immoral. Those public health campaigns disproportionately focused on the spread of HIV through sex between men and completely omitted discussion of other means of spreading HIV, including heterosexual intercourse and infection linked to injected drug use. Thankfully, through much protest, fighting and actively challenging the spread of homophobic misinformation, the stigma around HIV has significantly weakened over the past three decades. Although there is much work still to do in order to eradicate the scourge of homophobia from Scottish society, it is unquestionable that our country is now a more inclusive, more tolerant and a welcoming place for all LGBT people. Earlier this year, the international lesbian gay bisexual trans and intersex association ranked Scotland as the best country in Europe for LGBT equality for the second year in a row. The moralistic scare campaign around HIV of the 1980s is thankfully over. It is now widely accepted amongst the scientific community that a person living with HIV can take medication to manage their illness, allowing those individuals to achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load. That means that they cannot pass HIV on to sexual partners. The situation, as we have heard, is known as undetectable equals untransmittable. The U equals U status is a vital step that helps to challenge the stigma around HIV. U equals U highlights that people with HIV can live long, active and healthy lives. It is now our duty to make sure that this information becomes more widely known in society and ensure that it is not knowledge that is only known and understood by the scientific community. I would like to mention that, despite the impressive progress that has been made in Scotland over the last 30 years in preventing, treating and managing HIV, the illness continues to remain a critical public health issue in many countries across the globe, particularly in the global south. Recent figures from Avert illuminate the continuing prevalence of HIV with more than 36 million people living with HIV across the globe, including more than 1.5 million children. We cannot celebrate our progress in isolation. Although it is important that we recognise our own success, we must not become complacent in the fight against HIV. It is time that we redoubled our efforts to work not only on a national level but also on an international level in order to help to educate, prevent and treat HIV in pursuit of the United Nations AIDS 90-90-90 target, which is to be achieved by 2020. I warmly thank Emma Harper for bringing this debate to the chamber. Three decades of world AIDS days is a pretty extraordinary fact. I am finding it pretty extraordinary to reflect on the fact that I have been here in this place for half of that time. I was just reading the transcript of the world AIDS day debate that I took part in in 2003, brought by a former Labour colleague, Des McNulty, who I bumped into the other day and exchanged a hello. The fact that we have been debating this for so many times—I have reflected on this at a couple of world AIDS day events this year that I have spoken at—has made me recognise how much has changed but also how things have stayed the same. At that time, back in 2003, we were just debating Scotland's first ever sexual health and relationship strategy, which was still in draft. We did not even yet have that in place. We still see, while progress has been made, a great deal of patchiness around sex education and relationships education in our schools and a continued drive to put pressure on all of us, on political parties and on government, to improve that situation. I had previously been walking just before I was elected in an HIV agency. We were starting to see, in the years before that, the first effective antiretrovirals becoming more available, but, at that time, they had many more difficult, problematic side effects. They usually involved a combination of drugs more complex than today and much more problematic, especially for people with chaotic lifestyles. We have now got to the point where we have so many more effective remedies and effective tools in the box, both for treatment, which, as other members have mentioned, leads to a position where people can literally be unable to pass the virus on through sex, as well as new tools in the box on prevention. People have mentioned pre-exposure preventative prophylaxis and the opportunity to prevent HIV being transmitted among people who are in the highest risk groups. I could not have imagined at that point that we would be at the place where now we have those new tools in the box. Yet, we still see issues around stigma. When I was a student, I was probably one of the luckier generation. If I had come out a few years earlier, just before condom prevention was widespread, before people were talking about awareness of HIV, I might have been at much more risk. When I was a student, James Anderton, God's Cop, was the chief constable of Greater Manchester and was protected by the UK Government in his homophobic and bigoted comments about HIV and AIDS. Authorising raids on gay clubs in Manchester was reminded of when Emma Harper was talking about a medical professional using surgical protective gear. Police were sent into clubs wearing biohazard equipment in order to manhandle people who were just out for a night out. An extraordinary level of ignorance and prejudice was being cultivated deliberately at the time by those in power as well as by those with influence in the media. A lot has changed, but still things are the same with stigma. There are still pockets of severe ignorance, prejudice and stigma. I would also like to pay tribute as Mr Briggs did to Lloyd Russell and Boyle, whose actions in coming out publicly as someone who has HIV, who has a positive diagnosis, to do that from the position of the House of Commons for an MP to be able to say, not only I am willing to challenge that stigma, but someone with HIV can and does lead an active, healthy and long life, and that is something that HIV-positive people can expect. That is an important thing to do to challenge stigma. As Mary Fee said as well, we have made progress, but there is still a huge way to go on the international aspects of that. The idea that the 1990 target could be achieved around the world is still a long way from that. A great deal has changed, and a great deal is still the same. I would urge the Scottish Government, which has a sexual health and blood-borne virus framework that runs to 2020. That means that next year it will be doing the work on the next update of that. I would urge the Scottish Government to recognise the new tools that we have in the box for prevention and for treatment. Let's make the next update give a real commitment that we will set zero new infections of HIV as a goal into Government policy. That would be an important step forward, and it would drive forward the further progress that we all need to make. Once again, I thank Emma Harper for bringing this debate. I also thank my colleague and friend Emma Harper for bringing forward this debate to mark the 30th world AIDS day. It is only a year since the First Minister publicly took a test for HIV in a bid to break down the barriers around getting tested. That was an incredibly powerful moment and one that I am sure helped to encourage more people to follow in their footsteps and get tested. We have come a long way, also in decades, as many people have mentioned today, since HIV and AIDS entered the public consciousness and extraordinary headway has been made. That is due in large part to the bravery of those with the conditions speaking out and to organisations including HIV Scotland and Waverly Care, which both make huge contributions to helping to break down barriers and encourage testing. Within NHS Grampian, the most recent figures show that there are an estimated 426 people within the herd health boards area living with a diagnosis of HIV. Between 2009 and 2018, the figures for new diagnosis in NHS Grampian have fluctuated from 21 to a high of 35 in 2013, for dropping to 17 in 2015 and rising slightly again to 22 last year. I am hoping that that is a result of more people feeling that they can come forward to get tested and get diagnosed. As everyone has mentioned today, it is hugely important to stop the spread. While we welcome better detection rates, it is important that we are doing all that we can to educate about protection and the importance of testing. We know that HIV testing rates among Scottish respondents are worryingly low, and that was the phrase used in the recent report published by HIV Scotland. When I was researching for this debate, I wanted to have a look at what supports have been offered to those with HIV in the north-east and my constituency of Aberdeenshire East. I came across the story of Colin Mackay, who has dedicated his life to helping to support those with HIV. Colin initially became involved with organisations that help to support people, and he said that it was out of guilt. The reason that he said is because he had personally distanced himself from someone that he knew who had been diagnosed. He reflected on that and he wanted to make amends for that situation. He decided to use the feeling that he had and the fear that he had felt, and to channel that energy into helping people. He realised that he could help, and the more he became involved with helping, the better he understood the illness, and he could understand how people around those who were diagnosed with HIV felt, and he could help educate them. He has helped many people to find their own voice and to be able to say that they are struggling and deserve better support. It is people like Colin who is admirable, because the more we chose to break down barriers, the more we could encourage others. I agree with Mary Fee on the messaging. I was reflecting on that. I was in my first year at university when there was that campaign, the kind of don't die of ignorance campaign, with the icebergs and the ridiculous messaging across there. It was real scare munging. It was stigmatising, but it was deeply homophobic. The legacy of that is still damaging. It stops people from coming forward for testing, and it blinds people as to how the virus is actually spread, which I think is really dangerous. As Ruth Maguire mentioned, women were rarely considered in any of the public health messaging around that. It is improving, but it still lodges in people's minds. Thirty years on from the discovery of HIV, we know so much more about the virus, and we know that people can live with it, but we also know that it is a diagnosis that is still rife with stigma. We're miles away from the ida that I described, and everyone has mentioned that today, but the public health measures and messaging around HIV still need to be communicated continuously, loudly and clearly. I again thank Emma Harper for praying her part in that by allowing us all to talk about it in the chamber today. The last of the open debate contributions is from Jamie Greene. In the bed was a skeletal young man, wasted away to less than £100. He told her he wanted to see his mother before he died, so I said he wants to see his mother, and the nurses laughed. They said, honey, his mother's not coming. He's been here six weeks, nobody's coming. So I phoned his mother, and she hung up on me. I called her back and I said, if you hang up on me again, I will put your son's obituary in your hometown newspaper, and I will list his cause of death. Then I had her attention. My son is a sinner, the woman said. This was the words of Ruth Coker Birx, a brave young woman in the mid-1980s in the US, who cared for young men dying of what was then known as grid. It's a very sad story. She said, I had a little spade, and I'd dig the hole, and I'd bury them myself. We would have a do-it-yourself funeral. I couldn't get a priest. I couldn't get a preacher. No one would say anything over the grave 34 years ago. It's important that we're still having debates like that, because I think that while statutes have changed, and that is a hugely depressing story, there's also much good that's happened in the last 30 years, and I'd like to use the few minutes that I have to talk about some of that good work. I've got a number of congratulations today, and my first congratulations is to the city of Glasgow, because they've signed the Paris Declaration to end new HIV infections by 2030 and do its bit to stop stigma and discrimination. I say good on Glasgow for doing that. The second, as has been mentioned by others, is the work of a member of the UK Parliament, Mr Lloyd Russell Moll, and I think his immense bravery in standing up in his national parliament and being open to the world about his HIV status, and I think he did that because really he said he wanted to set an example that it's okay to talk about these things in the public domain, but he also said something else, and he wanted to make the point about being undetectable and what that means. That's my third congratulations, and that's the work that's going on at the moment today in Scotland around you equals you. What it really does is raise awareness that if someone is HIV positive and on the right medication they are untransmitable, they are undetectable. That means they cannot pass it on. It's a simple message, but I'm not sure everyone gets it, and the problem is, Presiding Officers, that 9 per cent of people living with HIV in Scotland do not know. There's still a huge amount of stigma, I think, because of that. People are still afraid to go and get tested, but campaigns like you equals you, I think, says that even if your result is positive, there is treatment out there, you will live a long, healthy and happy life, and you can have sexual partners and relationships like anybody else. I think that my next congratulations are around the issue of PrEP, and I'd like to congratulate the Scottish Government. I think that the fact that Scotland became the first part of the UK to introduce this treatment is incredible. It's something that we should all be extremely proud of. PrEP really has revolutionised the things. It's been a game changer, especially in the LGBT community. For those who aren't aware, perhaps watching this speech, it is a treatment that you take before sexual encounters if you're HIV negative and it reduces your risk. There are estimates that it's up to 99.1 per cent. I don't have the number to hand. The times when it doesn't work is perhaps when we have not been adhering to the regime. What I would like to point out today in the short time that we have is that the increased demand on that is putting huge amounts of pressure on services, especially in our cities. My office rang Charmers in Edinburgh to see how long it would take to get an appointment to register for PrEP, and the answer was February of next year, so it's three months. We've called back again this morning in advance of today's date, and that's come back to January. It's getting better, but it's clear that the sheer demand for this service is putting a huge strain on those who have to deliver it, so I'd like to congratulate those who are delivering these incredible services across Scotland. My fifth and final congratulations to Waverly Care. You'll see I'm wearing the tartan ribbon today. I'd like to thank them for their hospitality at their fundraising Saturday night. It was a bit of a shindig, as we say, but a huge amount of money was raised. They've been around for 30 years since the days of Ruth Berks and those horrific stories of how we used to treat people with HIV, and they've done incredible work over those last three decades, and I'd like to congratulate and thank them too. I hope that one day we won't have to have debates as somber as the one we have today, because I hope by then we will be just making sure that those who are HIV positive are getting the treatment that they need, but we won't be talking about new infections because there will be new infections. Perhaps a vaccine is just around the corner, who knows? I'm hopeful, but it really does require, and it will need, huge amounts of political will. I thank Emma Harper for bringing in this significant matter to the chamber, and all members for their thoughtful contributions today as we mark the 30th world AIDS day. That is an important topic, and I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Government, standing in for the Minister for Public Health, Jo Fitzpatrick, who was disappointed that he couldn't be here owing to long-standing ministerial business. As Mary Fee noted and Patrick Harvie so eloquently reminded us, the world has come a very long way in relation to HIV and AIDS over the past three decades, and there's much to be proud of in terms of the progress that Scotland has made on this also. Last week, as Emma Harper and Miles Briggs highlighted, we announced that we not just met the United Nations AIDS 90-90-90 target, but we had exceeded it and estimated 91 per cent of HIV-positive people in Scotland know their status. 98 per cent of those are receiving treatment, and 97 per cent of those receiving treatment are achieving viral suppression. That's real and significant progress that deserves to be recognised and celebrated. I want to take a moment to do that before moving on to the work still to come, because the Scottish Government agrees that we cannot and we must not stop now. A key area of progress has been on testing for HIV. It's so important that people who are at risk of HIV get tested and that we remove any barriers to that testing. I know that in Scotland there are many people across the NHS and the third sector who have worked incredibly hard to find new ways to promote and provide testing and to challenge the misinformation and stigma that can hold people back from coming forward. Another very significant milestone in the effort to tackle HIV in Scotland was met in July last year when PrEP became available on the NHS. As others have noted, PrEP occupies a very valuable place in our toolkit to prevent new HIV transmissions. We should take pride, as Jamie Greene noted, in the fact that Scotland was the first part of the UK to make PrEP available on the NHS to those who need it. Again, I know that NHS colleagues have worked exceedingly hard to make PrEP available to those who could benefit from taking it. I note Jamie Greene's comments in that regard. Over 1,800 people have started on PrEP in the first year of its availability, and 1,800 people whose risk of getting HIV is now dramatically lower. I think that that is an achievement that is well worth celebrating. That said, the statistic highlighted by Ruth Maguire that only 10 women have access to drugs is a concerning one. I will ask Mr Fitzpatrick to write to her in response. I will also draw to the minister's attention Patrick Harvie's point his call around the next strategy covering the post 2020 period. Although we have made this fantastic progress, I agree with Miles Briggs that we cannot risk resting our laurels. It is important to recognise that there are challenges ahead, and it is critical that we work collaboratively in order to keep making progress. Emma Harper's references to double-gloving still happening and the fact that HIV patients are being placed at the end of dental review lists reminds us of that. With an estimated 9 per cent of people living with HIV unaware of their stated, there is also that challenge around testing. Working across organisational boundaries will be key here. We need to ensure that third sector organisations are empowered to offer testing, and we need to support NHS colleagues across different specialities to be aware of HIV and know when to offer testing to meet Emma Harper's challenge, find, reach, treat. The Scottish Government is providing over £2 million to organisations dealing with sexual health and bloodborne viruses between 2018 and 2021. The organisations funded include Waverley Care, HIV Scotland and the Scottish Drugs Forum, all of which have a role to play in promoting testing to different communities in Scotland who are most at risk. The outbreak of HIV among people who inject drugs in Glasgow serves as an important reminder that we cannot afford to be complacent. Last week, my colleague Joe Fitzpatrick paid a visit to the staff in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde who have been involved in tackling the outbreak. He was impressed by their dedication and by the collaborations that they have established in order to tackle the outbreak, but we want to do more. As we stated in the alcohol and drug strategy that was published last week, the Scottish Government will support measures that may initially seem controversial or unpopular. That includes the introduction of supervised drug consumption facilities that are driven by a clear evidence base. Mr Fitzpatrick met the UK Government a few weeks ago. Regrettably, their stance continues to be that it will not allow such an initiative to proceed, but we will continue to press for a change in the law or for the devolution of the necessary powers. As many colleagues have rightly raised in their contributions to this debate, HIV's stigma has no place in Scotland today. We must all commit to seeing the individual person and never reduce or define someone by their HIV status. We must continue to challenge misinformation and spread the word that a person who is diagnosed with HIV in Scotland today can expect to live a full life with near-normal life expectancy. We must share the message that an individual with a sustained, undetectable level of HIV viral load in their blood is unable to transfer HIV to their sexual partners. As colleagues have made clear time and time again in this debate, undetectable equals untransmitable. I will finish where I started by again thanking Emma Harper and everyone who has contributed to this debate. That concludes the debate, and this meeting is suspended until half past 2.