U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report released Wednesday that inequality is preventing humanity from achieving its goal of eradicating AIDS by 2030, and he called on the international community to return to that goal by eliminating inequality.
According to the report, 1.7 million new HIV infections and 690,000 AIDS-related deaths worldwide in 2019 are well above the 2020 double-500,000 target set in 2016. Significant progress has been made in the fight against AIDS in some regions and populations, while inaction exists in others, and inequality in the field of AIDS prevention and treatment is the main cause of overall non-compliance. Inequality involves gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, income level, identity of infected persons, etc.
Guterres made 10 recommendations in his report, including reducing and thus eliminating inequalities that impede the fight against AIDS, making AIDS prevention a top priority, ensuring that 95 per cent of people at risk of infection have access to effective prevention tools by 2025, improving detection, treatment, virus suppression mechanisms, eliminating mother-to-child transmission and child infections, placing gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights at the heart of AIDS prevention, and increasing assistance to ensure that by 2025, Investment in AIDS prevention and treatment in low- and middle-income countries increases to $29 billion per year.
According to the report, the coronavirus pandemic has frustrated the AIDS prevention and control work, but coronavirus pandemic can not be used as an excuse to complete the AIDS prevention and control goals. On the contrary, the coronavirus pandemic is yet another reminder of the need to increase investment in infectious disease prevention and response.
The United Nations Member States adopted a political declaration on AIDS in June 2016, pledging to work together to increase efforts to combat AIDS and to achieve a set of specific targets by 2020 to end the PANDEMIC by 2030.
