UNAIDS officials fear that threats to funding might further undermine the global AIDS response. A concern expressed during a virtual press conference held on Thursday July 28 on the 2022 update report of UNAIDS.
The conference hosted by several officials of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, including its Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Ms. Berthilde Gahongayire; Regional Program Advisor, Mr. Mach Houd Kouton and Mr. Tristan Gijsenbergh was organized in collaboration with the African Media Network for Health and Environment Promotion.
This UNAIDS 2022 update report takes stock of the situation of HIV and AIDS in the world while measuring progress. This research paper argues that over the past two and a half years, the coincidence of the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemic as well as economic and humanitarian crises have heightened the threat to the global HIV response.
“COVID-19 and other instabilities have disrupted health services across much of the world, and millions of students have been taken out of school, increasing their vulnerability to HIV,” the report argues.
The over-indebtedness of poor countries and an unprecedented increase in the number of poor people around the world is having a negative impact on the AIDS response, putting severe pressure on communities that were already at higher risk of HIV to become even more vulnerable, says the UNAIDS.
According to this report, many major bilateral donors are cutting international aid for AIDS, meanwhile, low- and middle-income countries are plagued by higher tax burdens due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He points out that COVID-19 and now the war in Ukraine are generating exceptional headwinds. “Official development assistance for HIV from bilateral donors other than the United States of America has fallen by 57% over the past decade, making the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS , tuberculosis and malaria (the Global Fund) in 2022 more important than ever. In 2021, international resources available for HIV were 6% lower than in 2010,” UNAIDS said.
Also internally, the UN program in its document regrets that in low- and middle-income countries, domestic funding has decreased for two consecutive years, including by 2% in 2021.
“High levels of debt further undermine governments’ ability to scale up HIV investments,” the report says.
Progress in prevention and treatment is slowing around the world, putting millions of people at grave risk.
“The latest data collected by UNAIDS shows that while new HIV infections fell globally last year, the decline was only 3.6% from 2020, the smallest annual reduction since 2016. As a result, many regions, countries and communities have to deal with rising HIV infections alongside other ongoing crises,” the UN program warns in its report.
Clearly, he says, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America have all seen an increase in the annual number of HIV infections. over the past decade.
According to data from the report, every day 4,000 people including 1,100 young people (aged 15-24) are infected with HIV if current trends continue, 1.2 million people will be newly infected with HIV in 2025, three times the target of 370,000 new infections set for 2025.
“The human impact of the stalemate in the HIV response is chilling. In 2021, 650,000 people will die of AIDS-related causes, or one every minute,” the UNAIDS document said.
However, the report reassures: “With the availability of advanced antiretroviral drugs and effective tools to prevent, detect and properly treat opportunistic infections such as cryptococcal meningitis and tuberculosis, these deaths are preventable. »
The prerequisite for this success is to put in place a system of accelerated action to prevent people from reaching an advanced stage of the disease, underlines the report, because without this approach, deaths related to AIDS will remain a major cause of death. in numerous countries.
BY SIKOU BAH
Source : Info-Matin
