Speakers told the UN General Assembly on June 3 that almost 8 million AIDS-related deaths have been averted since 2000 and yet the fight against the global killer is still far from being over, according to the UN News Center.
They also expressed concern about escalating HIV rate in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and lack of access to treatment for 15 million infected people
While the global fight to defeat AIDS has produced remarkable progress over the past decade — with HIV infections among children and deaths from related illnesses among people of all ages nearly cut in half — greater efforts are needed to overcome one of history’s greatest health crises, delegates told the General Assembly on June 3 as they registered mixed results in reversing negative trends.
Opening the Assembly’s annual debate, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General’s Executive Office, said that, when AIDS was first identified more than 30 years ago, suffering and death seemed unstoppable. Years later, nearly 8 million deaths have been averted since 2000 and three quarters of people living with the virus now know their status.
At the same time, she expressed concern that progress remains uneven. Since 2010, Eastern Europe and Central Asia have reportedly witnessed a 30 per cent increase in HIV infections. Meanwhile, 15 million people living with the virus are unable to access treatment, often due to shame or stigma, while AIDS-related illnesses remain the leading cause of death among women aged 15 to 49. “Ending AIDS is about righting power imbalances”, as well as expanding health services, she stressed.
During the half-day debate, delegates decried that millions of people around the world still live with HIV and described both national and collective efforts to rapidly expand HIV prevention, testing and treatment by 2020. The challenges and opportunities loom large, several said.
