Mortality levels dropping with better treatment, but concern remains over care for older sufferers The incidence of cancer in the UK continues to rise as the population ages, but death rates are falling with improved diagnosis and treatment, official figures suggest. Statistics on newly-diagnosed cases and mortality published by the Office for National Statistics (pdf) on Thursday reveal about 153,800 men and 152,300 women were told they had cancer each year during 2006-08. That is a rate of 421 per 100,000 and 365 per 100,000 respectively; the rate over 2005-7 was 415 and 359. The latest mortality figures – 81,000 men (212 per 100,000) and 74,000 women (153 per 100,000) each year — represented slight drops on the previous rates of 214 and 154. Of all cancers, breast cancer has the highest incidence for women (123 cases per 100,000) and prostate cancer for men (100 per 100,000). Wales had the highest average annual cancer incidence rate for men (467 per 100,000) and Scotland for women (398 per 100,000) – although more than 80% of all diagnoses and deaths are in England. Concerns remain across the UK about cancer mortality rates compared with those in other countries, and a study on Wednesday warned that older people still faced “age-bias” in treatment for cancer. The Department of Health in England is launching pilot schemes to try to improve access to cancer services, and Mike Richards , its cancer director, has said that he expects the incidence of smoking-related cancers to tumble now the UK’s “tobacco epidemic” is past. Further changes in lifestyle, including lower alcohol consumption and more exercise, are also needed to reduce risks of other cancers. Cancer Health Scotland Wales James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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The director of this year’s Meltdown festival at the Southbank Centre is joined by the Leisure Society for a world exclusive performance of a newly written track, SANE Read much more about Meltdown here Andy Gallagher Elliot Smith Ben Kape
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Paper agrees to publish apology after false claims in about 80 articles and Justice for Baby P campaign The Sun has agreed to pay undisclosed compensation and apologised unreservedly to a social worker over the publication of false allegations about her role in the Baby P tragedy. In a statement read out in the high court in London on Thursday, the paper’s publisher, News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers, also agreed to publish an apology in print and online. Sylvia Henry, a social worker in the London borough of Haringey for 23 years, was accused in articles published in the Sun of being “grossly negligent” in her handling of Peter Connelly’s case and that she was “thereby to blame for his appalling abuse and death”, the high court heard. Henry’s solicitor, Daniel Taylor, told Mr Justice Eady the newspaper also said she had shown no remorse for these failings and was “shameless and had ducked responsibility for Peter’s death”. In a series of articles published over four months from November 2008, the Sun also alleged that Henry was lazy and “had generally shown an uncaring disregard for the safety of children, even in cases where they obviously required urgent protection”. The false allegations are understood to have been published in about 80 articles and Henry was also named in the Sun’s Justice for Baby P campaign, which called for Haringey social services staff it alleged were responsible for Connelly’s death to be sacked and barred from any future work with children. The Sun gathered 1.6m signatures for its petition, which was delivered to Downing Street. Taylor said the newspaper “unreservedly accepts that there is no justification for any of the allegations”. “The Sun accepts that Ms Henry was not at fault or to blame in any way for anything done by Haringey social services that may have contributed to Peter’s terrible abuse and death,” he added. “They accept that she did her very best for Peter and particularly that she made repeated efforts to have him kept safe by being placed in foster care rather than being returned to the care of his mother.” Taylor said the Sun had agreed to publish in the newspaper and online its unreserved apology to Henry for the “distress that she has been caused”. He told the judge the newspaper “will compensate her and will pay her legal costs”. Ben Beabey, solicitor for News Group Newspapers, said: “The Sun fully accepts that the claimant played no part and bears no responsibility for the circumstances surrounding the death of Peter Connelly and that she did her best for him. The Sun apologises to Ms Henry.” Henry accepted compensation and apologies in 2010 from the London Evening Standard, Daily Mirror and Independent over the publication of false allegations about her role in the Baby P case. •
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Ofqual’s chief tells exam boards that latest series of errors and rogue questions in AS and GCSE papers are unacceptable The qualification regulator is investigating six errors that have appeared in exam papers this summer, it has emerged. The latest error was found in a geography AS-level paper set by the exam board AQA. A graph showing the velocity of a river was incorrectly labelled as 0.5 rather than 0.05. The regulator has already written to exam boards warning them to ensure their papers do not contain errors. It said four of the errors being investigated were in AS-level papers and two were in GCSE papers. In one case, all the answers were wrong to a multiple-choice question in a biology AS-level paper set by Edexcel. The question was worth one mark out of a possible 425 and the board has promised that markers will adjust scores to ensure no candidate is disadvantaged. In another case, a business studies paper set by the AQA exam board left out crucial information so pupils were unable to answer one question, it emerged last month. The question, worth three marks, asked students about the profits that a fictional chocolate company was making, but examiners failed to include all the information about the company. In another, the OCR exam board included an “impossible” question in a maths AS exam. Students were asked to solve an equation without the information needed to do so. In her letter to exam boards, Glenys Stacey, Ofqual’s chief executive, wrote: “The recent run of exam errors are disappointing and unacceptable. While the vast majority of question papers taken so far have been free from error, there have been a number of question papers that have included errors. We take instances like this very seriously. I am calling on awarding organisations to take steps now to protect students from further disruption and anxiety.” Students fear the time wasted on rogue questions may mean they fail to achieve the grades they need for places at their preferred universities. One student who took the business studies paper told a tutoring website the exam started “with a bang. Then came the killer blow – I wasted quite a bit of time looking for the information.” He had answered the rest of the paper “in an agitated, nervous manner”. Another suggested a boycott of the exam boards on thestudentroom.co.uk website. “Nothing can rectify these mistakes except re-running the paper. And when will exam boards stop making these stupid msitakes [sic]. University places DEPEND on these exams!! It seems as if no-one actually checks these papers. Maybe we could boycott AQA and OCR until they re-run the papers??” AS-levels GCSEs Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Sun newspaper’s latest bid to overturn injunction involving former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin overturned by judge A high court judge today refused to lift an order banning journalists naming a woman with whom former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin had an “extra-marital affair”. Mr Justice Tugendhat rejected an attempt by the Sun’s publisher News Group Newspapers to have the woman named. She also worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland at the time when Goodwin was chief executive. A privacy injunction had previously prevented the naming of both Goodwin and the woman – who allegedly had a sexual relationship – but last month the order was varied to allow Goodwin to be named. That came after Lord Stoneham, a Liberal Democrat peer, used parliamentary privilege to refer to the existence of the injunction. He also argued that it was in the public interest for it to be dropped. Lord Stoneham told peers: “Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a superinjunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague. “If true, it would be a serious breach of corporate governance and not even the Financial Services Authority would be allowed to know about it.” More details soon…. Injunctions Superinjunctions The Sun Newspapers & magazines News International National newspapers Newspapers Sir Fred Goodwin Banking Royal Bank of Scotland Media law Privacy & the media Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
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Former PM’s call for clearer strategic approach comes with warning to dictators that they must ‘change or be changed’ Tony Blair has warned the west that it urgently needs a wider plan to respond to the Arab spring, including a warning to autocratic leaders across the Middle East “to change or be changed”. His call for a clearer strategic approach comes in a new foreword to the paperback edition of his bestselling autobiography, A Journey. The former prime minister also praises Europe, and by implication David Cameron, for showing leadership in Libya, saying it would have been inconceivable to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power. He said that if America and Europe had done nothing, “Gaddafi would have retaken the country and suppressed the revolt with extraordinary vehemence. Many would have died.” If he had been left in power while the west was willing to see Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and stature would have been not just massive but potentially irreparable. That’s what I mean by saying inaction is also a decision.” Blair does not call for immediate military intervention across the region, saying instead that “where there is the possibility of evolutionary change, we should encourage and support it. This is the case in the Gulf states.” He hails the way in which “Europe and America came together over Libya and, though it is difficult and though the way things will turn out is uncertain, it showed leadership; and amongst the criticism, there was also – in the region – relief that leadership was shown”. The former premier did a round of interviews on Thursday morning in which he made clear his support for military action in Libya, which he said seemed to be “succeeding”. He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “My view is that it is preferable to act, because the implications of things going wrong in this region are so strong.” He added: “I think that the construct of what the west and allies – including Arab countries – are doing is right. We have got to judge that according to the circumstances, but I think at the moment it looks like it is succeeding.” The fate of Egypt would be crucial to the outcome of the Arab spring,” he said. He said it would not be easy but “on balance” he was optimistic. He insisted he had been right to make overtures to the Gaddafi regime when prime minister. “I think we were right to welcome what he did then and we’re right to condemn and go after him for what he’s doing now,” he told the BBC. “I think when he gave up his nuclear and his chemical weapons programmes, this was a huge thing for us. He stopped sponsoring terrorism, he started actually co-operating. It was a big change and frankly, had the internal policies been the same, had he gone through the same process of change that his for policy went through it would have been beneficial for him.” On Syria, Blair said the west had to consider the consequences for the region of bringing down a regime such as that of Bashar al-Assad. “It’s not always easy to make absolutely logical distinctions. I mean, why are we treating Syria differently than Libya? The answer is because there isn’t the same consent to deal with the Assad regime in Syria. “There is some hope still, I think diminishing, that he could offer a reform programme of change in Syria and most of all, and this is what’s difficult when you’re sitting in a position of leadership – if you remove that regime what follows? What do you get? Do you get an orderly transition to democracy or do you get chaos, instability, with massive ramifications, in this case, for Israel, Palestine, for the peace process there.” While praising European and US efforts in Libya in his new foreword, Blair also calls for an elected European president who would have a mandate for far-reaching reforms including collaborating on taxes. In an interview in the Times he says such an office would give Europe “strong, collective leadership and direction”. But he accepts that the idea has “no chance of being accepted at the present time”. In his book, Blair acknowledges that the west cannot intervene across the Middle East and claims some leaders are “already embarking on a path of steady change. We should help them keep to it and support it. None of this means we do not criticise strongly the use of violence against unarmed civilians. Or that if that violence continues, we do not reserve the right then to move to outright opposition to the status quo, as has happened in Libya. “But it is more sensible to do so in circumstances where the regime has excluded a path to evolutionary change. Then it is clear: the people have no choice. But if there is a process that can lead to change with stability, we should back that policy.” He adds: “My point is simple: we need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the stands, applauding or condemning as we watch.” He says that the lesson for autocratic regimes the world over is to change – or be changed. Largely in line with the policy laid out at the G8 summit of most industrialised nations in Deauville last month, he says: “We should stand ready to help with aid, debt relief and the muscle of the international financial institutions, but we should also be quietly insistent that such help won’t succeed unless proper rules and order are put in place.” Blair, still the special envoy of the quartet in the Middle East, admits the Arab spring is going to make it harder to secure a Palestinian peace deal since Israel is less certain about the nature of the threat it faces. The stability and predictability of Israel’s neighbours, he says, has been replaced by instability and unpredictability. “For similar reasons, but with an opposite conclusion, the Palestinian leadership find it hard to go into negotiation with an Israeli partner they don’t trust, to make difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.” Blair also warns more broadly that the world has not yet adjusted to the emergence of China as a global economic giant, saying “engagement with geopolitics of the 21st-century will be unlike anything the modern world has seen. Our children in the west will be a generation growing up in a situation where virtually every fixed point of reference that my and my parents’ generation knew has changed or is changing”. He claims energy security will become as serious an issue for the nation states as defence. Blair says: “Currently China consumes around 10% of worldwide demand for oil. If its GDP per head carries on rising – and follows the path of similar increases in living standards in South Korea and Taiwan, say – the world output will need to double, and China’s share of demand will rise from 10% to 50%.” He also questions the way in which the EU leaders have led the debate about its future, saying “there has been an obsession about institutional integration in itself rather than a debate about what we want to do as Europe, where the institutions should be at the service of the policy, rather than the policy at the service of institutions”. Tony Blair Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Patrick Wintour Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Arizona’s Wallow fire destroys huge area of US national forest, forcing thousands of people to evacuate A wildfire blazed unchecked for an 11th day in Arizona on Wednesday, engulfing a deserted town, forcing thousands of people in nearby towns to flee and leaving 600 square miles (1,550 square km) of pine forest blackened. The blaze, which is believed to have been started by campers, ranks as Arizona’s second-largest forest fire on record. It cut through the popular mountain retreat of Greer, which had been evacuated days before, authorities told reporters in the nearby town of Springerville. Captain Jim Wilkins, a US Forest Service fire official, said it was too soon to know how many of several hundred homes in the town were lost. Earlier on Wednesday, authorities ordered the complete evacuation of Springerville and a third mountain community, Eager. The two towns, both situated near the New Mexico border, are home to 8,000 people combined. As many as 2,000 people had fled the Springerville-Eager area over the past two days, but officials had allowed most residents to stay pending possible further evacuations. As many as 11,000 residents in all have been displaced in the White Mountains region, since the fire erupted on 29 May. While the blaze remained at ‘zero containment’ no injuries have been reported and known property losses were limited to 11 structures, including at least four cabins, fire officials said. Around 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze. New Mexico state officials were also readying for the blaze, which they said was about a mile from the border on Wednesday, to cross into their state. Winds fanning the fire through tinder-dry ponderosa pines were expected to intensify again on Wednesday. “This fire is very large and very intense, and we’re still just trying to get a handle on it,” said fire information officer Brenyn Lohmoelder. One of the biggest challenges facing fire crews was the danger of additional spot fires ignited by burning embers carried aloft by high winds, said Jim Whittington, a fire official. Fire officials said the so-called Wallow fire had charred up to 157,000 hectares (389,000 acres) in and around the Apache-Sitgreaves national forest. Smoke from the conflagration, which fire officials suspect may have started from an unattended campfire, has drifted as far east as Iowa. Nearly 1,000 firefighters worked on Wednesday to gain greater control over a separate large wildfire burning in the south-eastern part of the state. Officials said the Horseshoe 2 fire had consumed nearly 43,000 hectares and prompted the evacuation of two small communities. Seven structures were reported lost in that fire, which was listed as 50% contained. Wildfires Arizona New Mexico United States Forests guardian.co.uk
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No 10 rejects claim by Rowan Williams that the government is forcing through ‘radical policies for which no one voted’ Downing Street has hit back at claims made by the head of the Church of England that the coalition government is forcing through “radical policies for which no one voted”. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, issued a broadside in which he also challenged the “big society” project and criticised the government for continuing to blame the country’s difficulties entirely on the deficit it inherited from Labour. Downing Street reacted swiftly to Williams’ comments, made in an editorial written as guest editor of this week’s New Statesman magazine. The government was taking the action needed to deal with the problems facing the country, a Downing Street spokesman said. “This government was elected to tackle the UK’s deep-rooted problems. Its clear policies on education, welfare, health and the economy are necessary to ensure we’re on the right track.” Williams wrote that the coalition is facing “bafflement and indignation” over its plans to reform the health service and education. “With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted,” he wrote. “At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.” Vince Cable said he was “baffled” by the criticism, particularly on health reforms. Cable told Sky News: “I was a little bit baffled by criticism, as he was talking about the lack of debate around health reform, but actually, there is intense debate around health reform. My party in particular has raised the whole issue about whether we should be proceeding in this present form. There’s vigorous debate in the press and parliament and in the public. Clearly he’s entitled to speak up but it’s a very odd criticism.” Williams’ comments appear unusually critical of the government for a head of the Church of England. But former prime minister Tony Blair said senior clergy attacking government policy was nothing new. “I seem to remember, going back to when I started in parliament in 1983, that bishops attacking government is a pretty recurrent headline,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme. “He is entitled to speak his mind. I remember people used to criticise our policies, not just on foreign policy and Iraq but on domestic policy and reform as well. It is just part of the way things work. I should imagine the government will say they are relaxed about it, and just get on with the things they want to do.” Williams accepted that the government’s big society agenda was not a “cynical walking-away from the problem”. But he warned there was confusion about how voluntary organisations will “pick up the responsibilities shed by government”, and said that the big society was seen with “widespread suspicion”. “The uncomfortable truth is that, while grass-roots initiatives and local mutualism are to be found flourishing in a great many places, they have been weakened by several decades of cultural fragmentation,” Williams wrote. He also criticised the chancellor, George Osborne, saying: “It isn’t enough to respond with what sounds like a mixture of, ‘this is the last government’s legacy’ and, ‘we’d like to do more, but just wait until the economy recovers a bit.’” The archbishop challenged the government’s approach to welfare reform, complaining of a “quiet resurgence of the seductive language of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor”. In comments directed at the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, Williams criticised “the steady pressure” to increase “punitive responses to alleged abuses of the system”. Westminster politics “feels pretty stuck” he warned, adding that his aim is to stimulate “a livelier debate” and to challenge the left to develop its own “big idea” as an alternative to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance. He complained that education secretary Michael Gove’s free-school reforms passed through parliament last summer with little debate, using a timetable previously reserved for emergency anti-terrorism laws. Separate reforms to universities will see tuition fees treble and funding for humanities courses cut. Williams says education “might well be regarded as a proper matter for open probing”. But “the feeling that not enough has been exposed to proper public argument” has created “anxiety and anger” in the country. Britain needs a long-term education policy “that will deliver the critical tools for democratic involvement, not simply skills that serve the economy”, he said. Lord Tebbit, former Conservative chairman and cabinet minister, said it was part of the archbishop of Canterbury’s job to “make comments of a political kind in this area”. Tebbit, a critic of the coalition, told Today that Williams was highlighting a “problem of coalition”. “He is quite right that there are policies of the coalition for which nobody seemed to vote, and policies for which people voted which are not being carried through by the coalition,” he said. “But that is the problem of coalition.” In a separate guest column for the magazine, the chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, argues that religion already does the big society’s job – and does it better. Sacks wrote: “A powerful store of social capital still exists. It is called religion: the churches, synagogues and other places of worship that still bring people together in shared belonging and mutual responsibility. The evidence shows that religious people – defined by regular attendance at a place of worship – actually do make better neighbours”. The reason for this is simple, Sacks argues: “Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good.” Liberal-Conservative coalition Rowan Williams Religion Patrick Wintour Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Home Retail chief executive Terry Duddy said three-quarters of Argos’s decline was due to poor consumer electronics sales A slump in demand for TVs and video games has triggered a sharp fall in sales at Argos. Shares in parent company Home Retail tumbled by nearly 14% in early trading on Thursday morning after it released disappointing quarterly sales figures for Argos, which is Britain’s largest TV seller by volume. The news sent a shiver through the retail sector, with shares in rivals Dixons and Kesa also suffering. Like-for-like sales at Argos fell by 9.6% to £817m during the 13 weeks from 27 February to 28 May. Home Retail’s chief executive Terry Duddy said three-quarters of the decline was due to poor consumer electronics sales. Sales of TVs plummeted by 20% while video games were down 25%. Duddy said that the overall consumer electronics market had declined by 20% over the period, with Argos matching that wider decline. “We said at the beginning of the year we would plan with increased caution and these figures reinforce that,” said Duddy. “It’s a big ticket and consumer electronics issue.” He noted that the Asda income tracker had shown a “real step down in disposable incomes”. But asked whether the government should push ahead with its austerity measures, he said the market was “hard to read” and there was “not enough evidence” to change course. He stressed that Argos managed to hold on to its market share, helped by good laptop sales. Argos sold 150,000 TVs in the quarter, compared with a total of 1.5m last year – accounting for one-in-five of all TVs sold in Britain. Margins dropped by 75 basis points as prices continue to fall. “You’ve got to do promotions,” said Duddy. “There’s some very sharp pricing in TVs and video games.” A 32-inch flatscreen TV can now be bought for £200 while a 37-inch set can cost less than £300. Seymour Pierce analyst Freddie George said: “Argos remains under pressure from a weak consumer environment while the food retailers continue to grab share in its core markets. The stock price, however, is underpinned by the dividend, which is unlikely to be reduced in the medium term.” Duddy now expects a ‘mid single digit’ decline in like-for-like sales at Argos this year, a touch down from the company’s previous forecast of a range between low and mid single negative digits. The second quarter will be tough because of the comparison with last year’s World Cup while the comparatives should get easier into the autumn when sales were depressed by bad weather last year. Matthew McEachran at Singer said: “We would expect downgrades today of £10-20m (5-10%) to current year [pre-tax profit] estimates. We remain cautious on earnings prospects given cost pressures and the group’s exposure to the UK mass market customer.” An Argos TV channel is due to launch in the next few weeks as the retailer, which lost its long-serving boss Sara Weller in April , attempts to reverse sliding sales. It is also expanding its book range and moving into children’s clothes. The company’s Homebase chain, on the other hand, benefited from the warm spring weather and the extra bank holiday in April for the royal wedding. Buoyant sales of garden furniture, plants and exterior decorating products pushed like-for-like sales 1.6% higher to £458m. Home Retail Retail industry Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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UN secretary general tells world presidents, ministers and diplomats to unite ‘as never before’ to eradicate disease The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has called for global action to put an end to Aids by 2020 and relegate the disease to the history books. Opening a three-day general assembly meeting in New York to assess progress in combating HIV/Aids, the UN chief told presidents, ministers and diplomats from across the globe that if all partners involved in the fight unite “as never before” the goal can be met. “Today, we gather to end Aids,” the secretary general said. “That is our goal: zero new infections, zero stigma and zero Aids-related deaths.” Ban recalled that world leaders first took responsibility for controlling the epidemic at a UN meeting in 2001, and since then new infections have declined by 20%. Five years ago, leaders pledged that every individual would get services, care and support to cope with HIV and Aids and since then Aids-related deaths have fallen by 20%, he said. Michel Sidibe, executive director of the UN Aids agency, told leaders that the vision of an Aids-free world can be realised. However, he said it will require revolutionising HIV prevention and the mobilisation of young people “as agents of change” in reducing treatment costs. It will also require ending discrimination and providing lifesaving services to the groups most affected migrants, prisoners, people who inject drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men, he said. Sidibe said 1.8 million people die of Aids-related causes every year in the developing world, and in developed countries Aids is becoming a chronic disease. He said 9 million people in the world await treatment. Sidibe urged donors, who have reduced funding for Aids for the first time in 10 years, to increase their contributions to meet the new goal. “We cannot stop our investment now,” he said. “With an effective upfront investment we can make the down payment to alter the costs trajectory and end this epidemic”. The UN Aids chief said getting to zero will require new innovations to provide inexpensive diagnostic methods and medication available for everyone, everywhere in five years. With sustained investment in research and development, he said, “we will have a microbicide that women can use to protect themselves from HIV and we will have a vaccine that will eradicate this virus”. According to research by UN Aids, an additional $6bn (£3.64bn) will be needed every year by 2015 to help avert 12m new infections and more than seven million deaths by 2020. Sharonann Lynch of Médecins sans Frontières said: “The world needs an ambitious treatment target with a plan attached to make it a reality because it will be meaningless if countries aren’t willing to come up with the cash and actions needed to break the back of the epidemic.” Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, said his country has been fighting the spread of HIV/Aids in part by working with the local film industry to promote behavioural change and awareness among the young. He has put forward a bill in parliament that seeks to fight discrimination against infected people, he said. Still, Jonathan said, getting necessary anti-retroviral medication to the 1.5 million Nigerians who need it remains a challenge, as does promoting prevention of the HIV virus’s transmission from mothers to children. “To say that adequate funding is critical to the success of our HIV and Aids response is an understatement,” Jonathan said. “We cannot win the fight against the HIV/Aids scourge without international solidarity.” The prime minister, Denzil Douglas of St Kitts and Nevis, spoke on behalf of the Caribbean community that remains the region second only to sub-Saharan Africa with the highest HIV prevalence rate. He cited a 14% decline in new HIV infections and a 43% decline in Aids-related deaths over the past decade. He warned that without long-term and sustainable financing, “reversal of the marginal gains over the past 10 years is inevitable”. Aids and HIV HIV infection Ban Ki-moon United Nations Health Sexual health New York United States guardian.co.uk
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