"The UNAIDS report 2024 demonstrates that the actions that leaders will take this year will determine whether the world succeeds in ensuring that we reach the end of AIDS by 2030 - or we fail," said Winnie.
Path to end AIDS is not a mystery - it is a political and a financial choice
With restructuring of debt and financial architecture where human rights and people's wellbeing are central, governments need to ensure that domestic financing for health (and HIV) is sustained and increases to optimal levels. International development aid should not decline too.
"I am HIV positive myself. I am a gay man. I am in a very lucky position because I live in a country (Germany) where (HIV) treatment is available and where there is no discrimination," said Peter Wiessner of Action Against AIDS Germany. "This is a lucky position to be in because I know there are certain countries where I would be put in jail" This is what inequality is all about - and this is not right."
Peter is right. Nearly a quarter of people living with HIV worldwide, are not receiving lifesaving treatment - and over half of them are in Africa. As a consequence, a person dies from AIDS-related causes every minute.
1 in 8 people who died due to AIDS in 2023 was a child
Because treatment is inaccessible, almost half of those facing AIDS-related death are children born with HIV - most in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over 76000 children died of AIDS-related causes in 2023 - "All of them could have been saved," rightly said Winnie. "We cannot accept this (AIDS-related deaths) because we have all the tools for prevention, testing, and treatment and care."
World leaders pledged to reduce annual new HIV infections to below 370,000 by 2025, but new HIV infections are still more than three times higher than that (1.3 million in 2023). And now cuts in resourcing and a rising anti-rights push are endangering the progress that has been made.
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