Official: AIDS/HIV still here

THE devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on people’s lives and livelihoods and on economies worldwide is a reminder of the destructive power of microscopic viruses, says UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima. “In the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world will come together from June 8 to 10 to set out a bold new agenda to end another pandemic, 40 years after it emerged.
At the 2021 United Nations high-level meeting on AIDS, in New York and online, leaders, activists and people living with and affected by HIV will forge a new UN political declaration to set the world on course to end AIDS by 2030,” she said. “Huge gains have been made since the first AIDS cases were identified four decades ago.  “After peaking at 1.7 million in 2004, global AIDS-related deaths fell to fewer than 700,000 in 2019. “New HIV infections similarly fell, from 2.8 million in 1998 to 1.7 million in 2019. “And HIV treatment has given hope to millions. “What was once a death sentence can now be effectively managed. “Last June, 26 million people were accessing life-saving antiretroviral therapy, a treatment that can give people living with HIV a normal life expectancy.”Byanyima said the gains were, however, insufficient and Papua New Guinea was not on track to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 – a promise made by PNG along with 192 other countries in the sustainable development goals and at the UN meeting in 2016.“With the Covid-19 pandemic still impacting nearly every nation, it is easy to forget other public health crises,” she said. “But the HIV pandemic is still with us, it is still real and Covid-19 is impacting the progress on ending AIDS.”