World AIDS Day is held on December 1 each year. ‘On the Fast-Track toend AIDS’ has been chosen by UNAIDS as the theme for World AIDS campaign in 2015. Through the projects for prevention and control arranged in phases, UNAIDS aimed to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Today (November 30, 2015), the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) held a media conference inresponse to World AIDS Day. The Health Minister Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌), the Taiwan CDC Director-General Kuo Hsu-sung (郭旭崧) , and members of the HIV/AIDS Rights Advocacy Associations together turned on the decorating lights placed in the shape of a giant red ribbon on the wall outside the Taiwan CDC office. To remindthe public to pay attention to AIDS and care about individuals with HIV infection, these lights formed in the shape of a big red ribbon would be automatically turned on after 6 pm every evening for one month.

A Taiwan CDC official said that all future AIDS prevention and control strategiesin Taiwan would be based on the following three primary principles: eliminating AIDS/HIV stigma; advocating for treatment as prevention (TasP); and finally, launching a multiple-screening program. The HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act soon would be merged into the Communicable Disease Control Act toimprove disease management and strengthen the privacy protection of those infected with AIDS/HIV to prevent discrimination against them. Echoing UNAIDS’s call, Taiwan CDC is striving to reach the targets of the ‘90-90-90’ plan by 2020: 90 percent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90 percent of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy willhave viral suppression. Taiwan CDC has also planned to make AIDS prevention services, HIV screening and medical care would available to all those who need them in order to effectively decrease the number of AIDS/HIV infected individuals.

In Taiwan, a comprehensive Harm Reduction Program targeting the injecting drugs users was launched 2007, which eventually controlled the spread of AIDS/HIV. Beginning 2009, universal HIV screening was made accessible to all pregnant women. As a result, all HIV-positive pregnant women and their newborn babies were able to take medication to prevent perinatal HIV transmission. The aforementioned strategies have been effective. Since then, only a few cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV had been reported in Taiwan. This year, the Legislature passed the amendments to the HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act, removing the restrictions on the entry, stay and residence offoreigner with HIV, which was the implementation of the two United Nations Human Rights Covenants, marking a significant step forward in the protection of humanrights in Taiwan. The reimbursement rules of medical expense on AIDS care werealso amended, which reached a milestone in the prevention and control of AIDS/HIV in Taiwan.

As of the end of November, 2015, 2,127 people became newly infected with HIV. The cumulative total number of HIV cases is 30,833 (25,810 of whom remained alive). According to the statistics compiled by Taiwan CDC in 2014, the largest numberof infections was observed in the 25 to 34 age group, accounting for 44% of allcases. The second largest group was among the 15 to 24 age group, accounting for 29% of all cases. Seventy percent of the HIV-infected people were between the ages of 15 to 34. Unprotected sex was the most important factor in HIV transmission, accounting for 96 percent of the total. Taiwan CDC has planned tokeep on integrating resources and working with other ministries, local healthunits and civic organizations to provide young people with the correct information about AIDS/HIV in order to encourage them to refuse drugs and unprotected sex, increase their knowledge about HIV and raise their awareness of self-protection.