Baku, July 23, AZERTAC
A new report released by UNAIDS shows that the world is at a critical moment that will determine whether world leaders meet their commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, according to the official website of the organization.
The report, The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads, brings together new data and case studies which demonstrate that the decisions and policy choices taken by world leaders this year will decide the fate of millions of lives and whether the world’s deadliest pandemic is overcome.
Whilst the end of AIDS is within our grasp, this decade, currently the world is off track. Globally, of the 39.9 million people living with HIV, 9.3 million, nearly a quarter, are not receiving life-saving treatment. As a consequence, a person dies from AIDS-related causes every minute.
Leaders pledged to reduce annual new infections to below 370 000 by 2025, but new HIV infections are still more than three times higher than that, at 1.3 million in 2023. And now cuts in resourcing and a rising anti-rights push are endangering the progress that has been made.
“World leaders pledged to end the AIDS pandemic as a public health threat by 2030, and they can uphold their promise, but only if they ensure that the HIV response has the resources it needs and that the human rights of everyone are protected,” said UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. “Leaders can save millions of lives, prevent millions of new HIV infections, and ensure that everyone living with HIV can live healthy, full lives.”
The report finds that if leaders take the bold actions needed now to ensure sufficient and sustainable resourcing and protect everyone’s human rights, the number of people living with HIV, requiring life-long treatment, will settle at around 29 million by 2050 but if they take the wrong path, the number of people who will need life-long support will rise to 46 million (compared to 39.9 million in 2023).
The report shows continued (although slower) progress in rolling out medicines to people living with HIV with 30.7 million people now on treatment, more than 3 in 4 people living with HIV. As recently as 2010 treatment coverage stood at just 47%. The expansion of people accessing treatment is a landmark public health achievement that has seen AIDS-related deaths halved since 2010—from 1.3 million to 630 000 in 2023.
However, the world is off track to meet the 2025 target of reducing AIDS-related deaths to below 250 000.
Although tremendous progress has been made in preventing new HIV infections which have fallen by 39% since 2010 globally, and by 59% in eastern and southern Africa, the report shows that new HIV infections are rising in three regions, the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and central Asia and Latin America, and gaps and inequalities persist.
UNAIDS calculations show that whilst 20% of HIV resources should be dedicated towards HIV prevention for populations most affected by HIV, just 2.6% of total HIV spending went towards interventions for key populations in 2023.
Around the world funding is shrinking, holding back progress and even leading to rising epidemics in certain regions. In 2023, total resources available for HIV (US$ 19.8 billion) dropped by 5% from 2022 and were US$ 9.5 billion short of the amount needed by 2025 (US$ 29.3 billion). Domestic funding in low- and middle-income countries—¬which make up 59% of total resources for HIV—is being constrained by the debt crisis and fell for the fourth consecutive year, with a 6% decline from 2022 to 2023.