Jeremy Miles MS, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
Today we mark World AIDS Day – this year our focus is on overcoming disruption and transforming the AIDS response as we collectively call for sustained political leadership, international co-operation, and human-rights-centred approaches to end AIDS by 2030.
The global fight to eliminate the transmission of HIV and end all forms of HIV-related stigma and discrimination is faced with a significant reduction in international funding. The consequences could be significant, resulting in a large increase in infections and deaths, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
I will continue to advocate for global policies, which ensure everyone has access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care.
In Wales, these policies are well established in our HIV Action Plan for Wales 2023-26, which is supporting improvements in access to testing, early diagnosis and support for people with HIV.
Earlier this year, I confirmed the funding to support the delivery of the HIV Action Plan over the remainder of its lifetime. A significant element of this has enabled the continuation of our national, free and confidential online Test and Post service and the expansion of free test kits in local communities. In 2024, more people than ever used the Test and Post service and to date more than 33,000 test kits have been distributed to 480-plus settings.
All health boards have now signed up to the Fast Track Paris Declaration, making Wales a Fast Track nation. It demonstrates our commitment to ensuring no one will be left behind in accessing equitable healthcare and confronting HIV-related stigma and discrimination. This is a remarkable achievement, and we will issue a tender in January to fund an-all Wales coalition to build on our progress.
Funding has been provided to develop the next stage of a business case for an all-Wales Sexual Health Case Management System and is expected to be completed by the end of the financial year. This is an important next step in ultimately delivering a system which will improve patient management, provide better data to monitor trends, allow us to measure the success of our interventions and to plan service provision.
Efforts to tackle HIV-related stigma are continuing through awareness programmes and specific projects, including training and education for the NHS and social care workforce and for secondary school learners.
Thanks to highly-effective treatments, people with HIV are now living long and healthy lives but we know some will require additional support, which can often be best provided by those with lived experience. To ensure this is available across Wales, we are commissioning a nationally funded peer support programme.
The latest data about trends in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV in Wales show that, with testing and prevention at record highs, we can significantly reduce transmission and ultimately achieve our goal of zero new transmissions in Wales by 2030. In 2024, there was a 20% reduction in new cases in Wales.
But despite record testing levels, nearly half of newly diagnosed cases were assessed as being diagnosed at a late stage. Clinicians meet regularly to review every case to understand if there were opportunities to identify infection at an earlier stage and share lessons that can be learned.
The number of people using pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which when taken as prescribed reduces the risk of contracting HIV through sex by 99%, is increasing year on year. Increasing uptake further is part of our approach to reaching our goal of ending new transmissions. Targeted messaging is already underway to improve people’s awareness of PrEP and I expect health boards to innovative to improve access. Until recently, PrEP has only been available as a tablet which needs to be taken every day. Now, a new form of injectable PrEP, which is given every two months and can be used by people who cannot take oral PrEP for clinical reasons, is being made available in every part of Wales.
We have made considerable progress in a short space of time, thanks to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved, but there is still work to do if we are to achieve our goals of no new transmissions and people living with HIV live well.