Members' Business — S6M-11334 Clare Haughey: World AIDS Day 2023

That the Parliament recognises World AIDS Day, which falls on 1 December 2023; recognises that millions of people around the world live with HIV, which continues to have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of people globally; believes that, thanks to scientific developments, if on the right treatment, a person living with HIV in Scotland today can live a long, happy and healthy life and cannot pass the virus on to others; notes what it sees as the impact that inequalities in accessing treatment, and stigma surrounding HIV, continue to have across Scotland, including in the Rutherglen constituency; commends the recent Terrence Higgins Trust advertising campaign that aired on STV, which aims to tackle the stigma of HIV; understands that this is the UK's first major public health campaign regarding HIV/AIDS in four decades; welcomes the Scottish Government’s goal of ending HIV transmission in Scotland by 2030; further welcomes the Scottish Government’s ongoing work to realise this goal, including the development of a pilot online HIV prevention service, to make it easier for people to get pills to prevent infection; considers that Scotland has been a recognised leader in real-world implementation of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) since the introduction of its NHS-delivered programme in 2017; welcomes what it sees as the continued progress being made in the decline of HIV diagnoses in Scotland; further welcomes increases in the uptake of PrEP, with the latest statistics reportedly showing the highest number of people accessing PrEP in any six-month period since the implementation of the programme in July 2017, and notes the belief that, while welcome progress is being made, substantial work remains to be done to meet the ambition to end HIV transmission in Scotland, and to tackle the inequalities that it considers are holding back progress.