The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Complacency threat to Aids fight – Harry
South Africa: Prince warns that HIV has ‘drifted’ from headlines
Prince Harry has warned the fight against HIV faces the threat of complacency and called on the next generation to step forward and acknowledge that “stigma and discrimination” are the greatest barriers to defeating the disease.
With people living longer thanks to improved treatment, Aids has “drifted” from the headlines and the fight to combat the virus risks a “real drift of funding and action”, Harry told an international conference in South Africa.
Speaking at the Durban summit, where he shared a stage with Aids campaigner Sir Elton John, the prince added: “When my mother held the hand of a man dying of Aids in an east London hospital, no- one would have imagined that, just over a quarter of a century later, treatment would exist that could see HIV-positive people live full, healthy, loving lives.
“But we now face a new risk – the risk of complacency.
“As people with HIV live longer, Aids is a topic that has drifted from the headlines. And with that drift of attention, we risk a real drift of funding and of action to beat the virus.
“We cannot lose a sense of urgency, because, despite all the progress we have made, HIV remains among the most pressing and urgent of global challenges – 1.1million people died of Aids and 2.1million were infected last year alone.
“HIV remains the number one cause of death among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. In my own country, infection rates are still rising among important groups despite the availability of instant testing and universal access to treatment.
“So it is time for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”
Harry's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was the first member of the Royal Family to have contact with a person suffering from HIV/Aids.
In the late 1980s, when many still believed the disease could be contracted through casual contact, she sat on the sickbed of aman with Aids and held his hand.