According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS UNAIDS global report 2019 released on Tuesday, HIV-related deaths in 2018 fell to about 770,000, which is 33 percent lower than in 2010 when 1.2 million deaths were recorded. However, the report called for “greater urgency” in the global AIDS response.
HIV/AIDS mortality remains high worldwide, reminding the international community that the fight against the pandemic is far from over.
According to the report, an estimated 37.9 million people worldwide now live with HIV, but a record number — 23.3 million of them — have access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), which can control the infection.
According to the report, key populations and their sexual partners now account for more than half (54%) of new HIV infections globally. In 2018, key populations – including people who inject drugs, gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers and prisoners – accounted for around 95 percent of new HIV infections in eastern Europe and central Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa.
However, the report also shows that less than 50 percent of key populations were reached with combination HIV prevention services in more than half of the countries that reported.
This highlights that key populations are still being marginalized and being left behind in the response to HIV, says the report.
Despite this progress, the UN warns that efforts to eradicate the disease are stalling due to lower investment and marginalized communities that lack vital health services.
Although eastern and southern Africa still have the world’s highest number of cases, deaths related to HIV and AIDS in Africa have dropped significantly over the past decade.
“We urgently need increased political leadership to end AIDS,” said Gunilla Carlsson, UNAIDS executive director. “This starts with investing adequately and smartly and by looking at what’s making some countries so successful.”
Carlsson said that ending AIDS is possible if focus is placed people, not diseases, road maps are created for the people and locations being left behind, and a human rights-based approach is taken to reach people most affected by HIV.
The report stresses the urgency for countries and communities most affected by HIV to get the necessary resources and support to apply the lessons of community approaches of HIV testing and treatment.
The report shows that the gap between resource needs and resource availability is widening revealing that for the first time, the global resources available for the AIDS response declined significantly, by nearly $1 billion, as donors disbursed less and domestic investments did not grow fast enough to compensate for inflation.
In 2018, $19 billion (in constant 2016 dollars) was available for the AIDS response, $7.2 billion short of the estimated $26.2 billion needed by 2020.
To continue progress towards ending AIDS, UNAIDS urges all partners to step up action and invest in the response, including by fully funding the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria with at least $14 billion at its replenishment in October and through increasing bilateral and domestic funding for HIV
The report urges the international community to ensure that 30 million people living with HIV have access to treatment through meeting the 90-90-90 targets by 2020.
The 90-90-90 targets mean that 90 percent of people living with HIV know their status, 90 percent of those are on antiretroviral treatment and 90 percent of those have a suppressed viral load.
The 90-90-90 targets are an important indicator of the success of a country’s HIV response.
