Elton John, Prince Harry move to break AIDS cycle

Elton John joined forces with Britain’s Prince Harry to launch a $1.2 billion initiative on Tuesday to “break the cycle” of HIV transmission by targeting young men, among whom infections are on the rise.

On the second day of a major international AIDS conference in Amsterdam, the two lent their mega-wattage star power to calls for action to end the lingering stigma around the virus and protect generations to come.

“Young people are the only age group where HIV infections are rising, not falling,” warned rock star and veteran AIDS campaigner Elton John as he announced the launch of the MenStar Coalition.

“We have to do much, much more to bring men, especially younger men more fully into the fold,” he insisted.

The coalition brings together different partners, including the UN’s Unitaid and the US fund PEPFAR, as John warned that 24- to 35-year-old men were accessing HIV testing and treatment at “unacceptably low rates.”

Much work has been done to protect women and girls but “we can’t solve the whole problem if we are only addressing half the situation,” John said.

“If we want to win this fight, if we want to end AIDS once and for all, we must make men part of the solution” and teach them to protect themselves, “not only their wives and girlfriends, their sisters, and daughters, but also critically their brothers and their sons.”

Some 15,000 delegates – researchers, campaigners, activists and people living with the HIV virus which causes AIDS – have gathered for the five-day war council.