 Are you with us? Are you with us? Are they with us? Are those who have left us with us here today? Do they want an end to this disease? Do they stand with you to end this disease? We are at the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. The conference this year was overshadowed by the news that six delegates to the conference were killed in the plane crash of MA17. There are highly effective antiretroviral drugs that can prevent people from dying of AIDS and keep them healthy, but they do not eliminate the virus completely. Some people say that the cure for HIV might have been on the fight. Are we that close to end the HIV epidemic? We came to the conference to find out. When are the scientists finding a cure for HIV? How close or how far are we? A cure which is actually applicable to everybody around the world. Many very smart people don't think it's possible or will ever be possible. And my personal opinion is that if it is possible and we can do it, it's going to take many, many years. At the moment there is no chance to develop a medicine or cure for HIV, but what can we do to reverse the epidemic? Prevention of course, prevention, but prevention doesn't mean only condoms or syringes. Prevention should mean also reducing the stigma and discrimination that are facing people living with HIV and the key population. This is the global data here. The relative risk of HIV compared to the general population is of course higher among the key effective populations. Sex workers, MSM and people who inject drugs. Right now we have more than 50 sex workers here with red umbrellas. A symbol to fight horphobia and to recognition in our fight against stigma and discrimination. We need decriminalisation of sex work and we need it now. What are the key problems and challenges in relation to women and HIV epidemic? Women are turning their backs on anti-retroviral medication because of the stigma and discrimination that women face. So they're afraid of going home and then telling their family that they've got HIV because they're blamed for being the first in the family to bring it into their community. Even though it's most likely that they contracted HIV from their long-term partner or their husband, as most women in the world do. Silence equals death. Silence equals death. Silence equals death. Silence equals death. Silence equals death. We are in a sitting window also. They put us into MSM. MSM means men having sex with men. I'm not a man. I'm a woman. People who sleep with men, they conduct themselves as heterosexual people. Where are they? What programme are targeting them? None. In India now recently we have the Supreme Court verdict recognising the third gender and the ethnic transgender group in the country which is known as the Hijras. The process is slow but change is happening thanks to the whole epidemic of HIV AIDS which gives the platform to at least voice out our issues. What are the key challenges for people with disabilities in terms of HIV epidemic? Healthcare providers attitude to people with disabilities. The fact that they don't realise that people with disabilities are sexually active like anyone else. Why TB and HIV is a special problem? Well it's the number one cause of death for people living with HIV globally is tuberculosis. Overcrowding and poverty that drive TB. We have a very shocking situation with our social worker. He was kidnapped by separatists and they took them in the basement. He was beaten only because he is HIV positive and drug addict person. Anti-LGBT laws that are starting to populate everywhere. They're destroying us. Nigeria, Uganda, Russia. We see our friends and family being killed, being locked away. Stop criminalising drug workers. Stop criminalising drug users. We're all human. It's criminalisation that is driving the HIV epidemic amongst people who inject drugs and it's not just criminalisation of drug use. It's also many countries criminalisation of harm reduction programmes. By that I mean the provision of clean needles and syringes and I think substitution programmes. What works is needle and syringe programmes. I feel it's substitution therapy and antiretroviral therapy. These are the key things that work. What I find country after country is that harm reduction is the most cost effective. It's more cost effective than other prevention programmes, more cost effective than treatment. Ukraine is one of the countries that has the most rapidly growing HIV epidemic among drug users so it had now things were changing. Can you explain us the situation? Yes, that's right. It used to be really the driver of HIV epidemic in the region. Now new cases are declining and we observed this tendency among drug user population over four years so far and we reached this decline due to large scale harm reduction programmes. How this current political crisis in Ukraine affected harm reduction services? Anxation of Crimea led to interruption of essential services. The discontinuation of harm reduction and opioid substantive therapy in Crimea following the annexation that is having disastrous consequences on the cohort of people who were on OST in Crimea, 800 people in that cohort. At least 20 people in that cohort have already died. The global coverage of these programmes are extremely low. Only 10% of people who inject drugs around the world access needle and syringe programmes. 8% OST, about 14% access intervention therapy. 75% of people who inject drugs live in middle income countries and over 40% of new HIV infections related to unsafe injecting are in many middle income countries. These middle income countries are totally overly reliant on international donors but those priorities are now changing. International donors are saying we should focus on the poorest countries. We need to focus on countries where the burden of need for aid really lies. If we keep looking at the total income of a country and saying you are a rich country, therefore miraculously most vulnerable people are supposed to get funding, we are never going to address this crisis. I think we have to move to a different model. We have to start talking about income inequality, including within countries. Right now the reality is that about 60% of people living with HIV live in middle income countries. Take them off the list and you are basically taking the majority of people in need out of the running for effective treatment or prevention. Pharmaceutical companies claim that they are working hard to reduce the prices of antiretroviral drugs but civil society activists disagree. It's my pleasure to announce the next speaker which will be Greg Helton. Greg Helton is the executive vice president of the corporate medical affairs at Ilias. Pills cost pennies, greed cost lies. Pills cost pennies, greed cost lies. I'm here to talk on behalf of my colleagues HIV and HCV treatment activists all over the world. On behalf of those who have died and who are dying right now because of the pricing policies of pharmaceutical companies and in particular Gilead, we are disgust with the policies when the pill costs $1,000. We are outraged with the deaths of our friends and colleagues and people living with hepatitis C all over the world. We demand immediate price reductions from Gilead and all the pharmaceutical companies because hepatitis C is the disease that can be treated and cured already and people should not die from it today. As a lobbyist, so strongly engaged in the work we do. Martin for 12 years, my colleague in section Europe and recently bridging the gaps. Two fantastic people who were shut down, who were killed. The bridging the gaps alliance, that is the work that they were so much engaged in, that they so strongly believed in. Our mission is to achieve universal access to HIV and STI prevention, treatment, care and support for key populations. As Bill Clinton said yesterday, they gave their lives, but we will keep on the fight.