Interview with César Núñez, UNAIDS

Interview with Cesar Nunez, UNAIDS New York

How much progress have we made towards finding a cure for AIDS? Very little it seems. What progress has been made it is in great part thanks to the tireless efforts of a UN specialised agency, UNAIDS, and its programmes that helped coordinate the creation of a global medical knowledge base, making diagnostics data, treatment research, and drug development accessible to all.

UNAIDS leadership was pushing forward to address the political aspects of a global public health emergency as well, by influencing the adoption of a TRIPS waiver, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver, in 2001.

Brazil was spearheading that, and its former Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Human Rights scholar Celso Later, appointed by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, fought tirelessly, and finally Big Pharma gave in, and Brazil started producing retrovirals, and to this day has one of the best programs to support those affected by HIV/AIDS.

Healthcare workers, the ones suffering in the frontlines…