Greater Manchester joins a global network of cities spearheading the fight against HIV.

Check out our presentation from the Fast Track Cities Conference 2025

Greater Manchester began its first phase of a programme to ‘end new transmissions of HIV within a generation’ (HIVe) in 2016 with a scaled-up response to HIV as a key element of the city region’s ‘living well’ agenda delivered through a system-wide programme of work.

We became a Fast-Track City in 2018 signing up to the Paris declaration, a global initiative aimed at ending the HIV epidemic by 2030. Key commitments include achieving the 95-95-95 targets, ensuring 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95% of those diagnosed are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and 95% of those on ART achieve viral suppression. Greater Manchester have achieved these targets since 2022.

The Paris declaration also calls for the elimination of HIV related stigma and discrimination and integrating services, addressing not only HIV but also tuberculosis and viral hepatitis.

We are now committed to the 2022 the Seville declaration which emphasises the focus of communities in responses with commitments to:

Safeguarding the dignity and rights of communities affected by HIV, TB, and viral hepatitis
Goals for community-led response
Ensuring communities lead the planning, implementation, and monitoring of health responses

Nationally, England has set ambitious goals to end new transmissions of HIV and eliminate viral hepatitis, particularly hepatitis C and hepatitis B, by 2030.

The NHS aims to eliminate Hepatitis C (HCV) by 2025, 5 years ahead of the global target, achieve the World Health Organisation (WHO) target of 80% or more treatment coverage, reduce prevalence and maintain a low HCV mortality rate.

For hepatitis B (HBV) the goal is that more people living with HBV are diagnosed and linked to care and to improve access to vaccinations and community testing.

There are also goals around TB, to reduce incidence, improve detection and diagnosis, and to strengthen treatment and care.

What all these ambitions have in common is the need for integrated clinical and community approaches with novel testing and outreach, the leadership of people with lived experience and community organisations offering support for people to improve their treatment outcomes.

The Passionate about Sexual Health (PaSH) Partnership is a collaboration between BHA (Black Health Agency) for Equality, George House Trust, and the LGBT Foundation. The PaSH Partnership will deliver a comprehensive programme of interventions to meet the changing needs of people newly diagnosed with HIV, living longer term with HIV or at greatest risk of acquiring HIV. The Greater Manchester Sexual Health Improvement Programme (GMSHIP) will include HIV testing, access to low cost condoms, a dedicated sexual health website, HIV outreach, and support for adults and children newly diagnosed with HIV or living with HIV longer term. The PaSH Partnership believes the work it will deliver will be key to achieving Greater Manchester’s vision of ending HIV transmission within a generation.

Resources

Paris and Sevilla declarations

Paris and Sevilla Declarations – International Association of Providers of AIDS Care

Free home test for HIV

https://freetesting.hiv/

Free home test for hepatitis c

https://hepctest.nhs.uk/

The Hepatitis C Trust

https://www.hepctrust.org.uk/

British Liver Trust

https://britishlivertrust.org.uk/

HIV Prevention England