During her visit, in Madagascar, this week, the UNAIDS Executive Director, Ms. Winnie Byanyima called for accelerated global solidarity to strengthen the nation's response to HIV, including preventing new HIV infections and expanding access to treatment, to end AIDS as a public health threat. Madagascar has seen dramatic increase in new HIV infections since 2010 and a 158% increase in AIDS-related deaths over the same period. UNAIDS is concerned about what appears to be a dramatic increase in new HIV infections. 

She highlighted that, the country urgently needed technical and financial support from the international community to ensure that HIV prevention commodities, including condoms, testing kits and antiretroviral treatment are available to everyone in need for a scaled HIV response.