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Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is the Global Fund's first Ambassador: the Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS.
Since taking up the position in December 2008, France's first lady has performed a leading role in raising awareness about maternal and child health issues, urging action to prevent the transmission of HIV between mothers and their children as part of the global fight against HIV and AIDS. In Benin, Bukina Faso and India she has witnessed at first-hand the advances in health made possible through Global Fund supported programs. In 2010 she supported the Global Fund’s ‘Born HIV Free’ campaign that called for people to back the Global Fund and ending the transmission of HIV from mother to child by 2015.
Globally, women and children are overwhelmingly more at risk for HIV infection than men. Though the world has made great strides in recent years in prevention and treatment of HIV for both women and children – the total number of children being born with HIV every year has decreased as the number of women accessing services for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV has increased – both groups still need prioritised attention.
More than half of all people living with HIV are women and girls, and in some parts of the world young women are as much as eight times more likely than men to be HIV-positive. Gender inequality, human rights violations, and greater biological susceptibility to HIV together put women and girls at much greater risk than men.
Nine out of ten children living with HIV acquire the infection through pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding; in 2009, 370,000 children contracted HIV in one of these ways. This is down from 500,000 just a few years ago - but any number greater than zero is still unacceptably high.The Global Fund is supporting AIDS programs with a greater focus on maternal and child health around the world. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s advocacy is helping focus attention on the need to scale up such work worldwide.