Minister for Health David Davis will address a reception to commemorate World AIDS Day today at Government House where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, UNAIDS Global Advocate for Zero Discrimination, will deliver the keynote address.

“This year’s World AIDS Day theme, ‘Getting to Zero’, reminds us there is work to be done to achieve the ambitious United Nations/UNAIDS goals to achieve ‘Zero New HIV Infections, Zero Discrimination and Zero AIDS Related Deaths’,” Mr Davis said.

The recently-released 2013 UNAIDS World AIDS Day report shows a greater than 50 per cent reduction in the rate of new HIV infections across 25 low and middle income countries.

More than half of these countries are in Africa, the region most affected by HIV.

“Stigma and discrimination remain the most important barrier to effective public health action,” Mr Davis said.

“Stigma causes people to delay getting tested and commencing treatments to improve their health and it can also diminish a sense of self-worth and community belonging.

“Our prevention efforts need to include work towards challenging the silence that surrounds HIV, supporting people to live productive lives and promoting environments and settings that support and protect people disclosing their HIV status.”

Mr Davis said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, will today launch the Melbourne 20th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014).

“The conference represents a generational opportunity for Victoria to lead and learn from a global dialogue on HIV and AIDS,” Mr Davis said.

“It will afford us a unique chance to discuss the impacts of HIV and importantly bring us together to renew, refocus and step up the pace to end the epidemic.

“This is a critical time in the fight against HIV and the science indicates that, should we focus our efforts on key affected populations, we can significantly reduce the rates of HIV notifications.”

Mr Davis said that in Victoria there were about 6,000 people living with HIV, with around 265 new cases identified each year.