United Nations calls for further action to combat AIDS in the recession of COVID | HIV / AIDS News

The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a declaration calling for urgent action to eradicate AIDS by 2030, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating inequality and access to AIDS treatments, treatments and diagnoses. “Be wary” that he is no longer on track.

The late Tuesday declaration aims to reach 95% of risk groups in which countries have HIV prevention options and to provide treatment to 95% of those who know they are infected with HIV. It contains.

After four countries, Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua and Syria, opposed the text, it was adopted with 165 votes in favor and 4 votes against.

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanima said at a high-level meeting in New York that “a pandemic recurrence could even be seen under the influence of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID) crisis.”

“But the endless HIV pandemic is not our destiny,” she continued. “Despite all the setbacks, if the world is united, as we promised, public health. AIDS as a threat to AIDS can be ended by 2030. “

Russia has failed in an attempt to remove the wording that it urged countries to decriminalize prostitution and drug use.

Russia said at its General Assembly that under “concealment” to combat discrimination, several paragraphs “are trying to directly interfere with domestic law by abolishing so-called restrictive and discriminatory legislation.”

“As we can see from the 2021-2026 Global AIDS Strategy, UNAIDS believes that these strategies include legislation that somehow persecutes prostitution and drug use,” said Russia’s UN Deputy Ambassador Dmitry.・ Chumakov said.

Australia’s UN Ambassador to the United Nations, Mitch Fifield, who led the negotiations on the Declaration with Namibia, said, “Effective HIV control requires reform of laws and policies to be evidence and human rights-based.”

The high-level meeting took place days after the 40th anniversary of AIDS’ first public attention.

The Declaration includes parliamentary 193 member states to reduce the annual number of new HIV infections to less than 370,000 and the annual number of AIDS-related deaths to less than 250,000 by 2025, page 18. We promise to carry out this document.

It also calls for progress towards eliminating all forms of HIV-related stigma and discrimination and urgent efforts to treat HIV vaccines and AIDS.

Parliament warned that “the AIDS epidemic cannot be ended by 2030” without significant expansion of resources and response to vulnerable individuals.

Frustration in the fight against AIDS

It is that the coronavirus pandemic has set back in the fight against AIDS, “widening the disconnection of a deep and unequal world, to prepare for public health, health systems, and essential public services and pandemics for all. Reveals the risk of underinvestment. “

Parliament said the response to international investment in pandemics was inadequate, but still unprecedented. Coronavirus response by many countries has shown “greater investment potential and urgency” in responding to pandemics, and “toward public health systems, including response to advancing HIV and other illnesses.” The need to increase investment in the virus “is emphasized.

Shannon Hader, Deputy Secretary-General of UNAIDS, believes that enabling more equitable access to medicines and services is key to the fight against HIV.

“One of the reasons for the difference in responding to HIV is that it is not served in a way that is useful and accessible to those who need it most,” Hader told Al Jazeera.

“But for other reasons, legal frameworks, violence and gender inequality pose social barriers to those most affected, empowering them to access services and take steps to prevent HIV. It could have been given, “she added.

Call for acceleration of innovation

Byanima calls AIDS “one of the deadliest pandemics of our time,” and since the first case was reported in 1981, 77.5 million people have been infected with HIV and nearly 35 million have died of AIDS. I said I did.

She shows that COVID-19 shows that science moves “at the speed of political will” and “as a global public good” to accelerate spending on AIDS treatment, prevention, care and vaccine innovation. I said there is.

“HIV infection rates are not following the trajectory we promised together,” she said.

On the plus side, the Congressional Declaration stated that since 2001, the number of AIDS-related deaths worldwide has decreased by 54% and HIV infection has decreased by 37%, but “overall progress has been dangerous since 2016.” It’s slowing down! “

Parliament says that the number of new cases in 2019 is 1.7 million, compared to the global target of less than 500,000 in 2020, and that the number of new cases has increased in at least 33 countries since 2016. He expressed “deep concern”.