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Pause for a cause: Victoria Beckham appointed as UNAIDS goodwill ambassador

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UNITED NATIONS: In the wake of celebrities taking a more potent role in spreading awareness about health and the environment, fashion designer Victoria Beckham has been appointed as a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The former Spice Girl said she was inspired to help after a “life-changing” visit to HIV clinics in South Africa. In her role as a goodwill ambassador, she will focus on working towards ensuring that children are born free from HIV and that children and women living with HIV have access to medicines and care, UNAIDS said.

“It has taken me becoming 40-years-old to realise I have a responsibility as a woman and a mother. I have a voice that people will listen to,” Victoria told a news conference at the UN on the sidelines of the 69th UN General Assembly session. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know everything. I don’t and I’m learning,” she said, adding that she planned to take field trips to learn more about the global pandemic and ways she could help contain it.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region hardest hit by HIV, with 24.7 million HIV-positive people in 2013. Women account for 58 per cent of those with HIV in the region, which is also home to 85 per cent of pregnant women with HIV, according to UNAIDS. Last month, Victoria auctioned off 600 pieces of clothing, including several evening dresses, to raise money for and create awareness about mothers living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.

UNAIDS said that in 2013, one-third of pregnant women living with HIV did not have access to life-saving medicines and some 240,000 children became infected with HIV. But in the past five years, access to antiretroviral medicines for pregnant women with HIV helped 900,000 children to be born without HIV. REUTERS

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2014.

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