World AIDS Day 2021; December 1st

FORUM: “End Inequalities. End AIDs. End Pandemics.” World AIDS Day 2021.On the occasion of World AIDS Day 2021; Partners came together at a special event in Geneva, Switzerland, to highlight the urgent need to end the economic, social, cultural and legal inequalities that drive the AIDS pandemic and other pandemics around the world.

EVENTS:

With millions of lives on the line, UNAIDS and World Health Organization (WHO) World AIDS Day event saw global partners, including Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, urgently call for expanded access to health treatments and technologies and for human rights to be upheld. 

                                      

Statement from the UNODC Executive Director on World AIDS Day 2021; December 1st.


While significant progress is being made in the global AIDS response, people who use drugs as well as people in prison are being left behind.

Globally people who use drugs and people in prisons remain particularly vulnerable and disproportionately affected by HIV. People who inject drugs are 35 times more likely to acquire HIV than adults in the general population and people in prison are more than six times more likely to be living with HIV than adults in the general population. In many countries, prisons remain a high-risk environment for the transmission of infections including HIV, TB, viral hepatitis and now COVID-19.

According to the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2020, people who use drugs accounted for one-quarter up to almost one-half of new adult HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (48 per cent) in different regions of the world.

As a co-sponsor of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime is working to achieve universal access to comprehensive HIV services for people who use drugs as well as people in prisons, towards the global goal of ending AIDS by 2030. By implementing the UNODC’s Strategy 2021-2025 and the new Global AIDS Strategy in synergy we will magnify their impact on these key populations.

On 2021 World AIDS Day, let us commit to ending inequalities and ending AIDS by ensuring that evidence-based HIV prevention, treatment, care and support reach all those who need it.

CAMPAIGN: Step up, be bold, end AIDS, end inequalities and end pandemics.

UNAIDS warns of millions of AIDS-related deaths and continued devastation from pandemics if leaders don’t address inequalities

UNAIDS issued a stark warning today that if leaders fail to tackle inequalities the world could face 7.7 million* AIDS-related deaths over the next 10 years. UNAIDS further warns that if the transformative measures needed to end AIDS are not taken, the world will also stay trapped in the COVID-19 crisis and remain dangerously unprepared for the pandemics to come.

“This is an urgent call to action,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima. “Progress against the AIDS pandemic, which was already off track, is now under even greater strain as the COVID-19 crisis continues to rage, disrupting HIV prevention and treatment services, schooling, violence-prevention programmes and more. We cannot be forced to choose between ending the AIDS pandemic today and preparing for the pandemics of tomorrow. The only successful approach will achieve both. As of now, we are not on track to achieve either.”

The warning comes in a new report by UNAIDS launched ahead of World AIDS Day (1 December) entitled Unequal, unprepared, under threat: why bold action against inequalities is needed to end AIDS, stop COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics.

The 90–90–90 targets were missed, but not by much. At the end of 2020, 84% of people living with HIV knew their HIV status, 87% of people living with HIV who knew their HIV status were accessing antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of people on treatment were virally suppressed.