According to the United Nations Organization report, released on Thursday 13, AIDS can be eradicated by 2030 and there is a clear path that ends it.
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An estimated 39 million people globally were living with HIV in 2022, UNAIDS said in its latest report. Some 1.3 million people became newly infected with HIV and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses, according to the report.
Science has made great advances towards the goal of ending the virus. Although the long-awaited cure has not been achieved, treatments are becoming more and more effective, improving the quality of life of those affected, and significantly lengthening life expectancy. In the last decade some optimism has been reborn.
According to specialists, there are countries close to the eradication of AIDS and many others that have decreased deaths. For them, the eradication of AIDS is becoming a matter of financing and resources, rather than the development of science.
AIDS can be ended by 2030- in Eastern & Southern Africa new infections have been reduced by 57%- UNAIDS report
‘The Path that #EndsAIDS: Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, Tanzania, & Zimbabwe have already achieved the “95-95-95” targets. 16 other countries, https://t.co/7HCsosbfSl… pic.twitter.com/2gqgPUhCM5
— The Newz Post (@Newzug)
July 13, 2023
The climate of optimism has reached the Organization of the United Nations UN. A joint program carried out under its auspices (UNAIDS) arrives at the same conclusions that we mentioned before: the need for financing and political will to eradicate AIDS.
The UN wants these results to allow the design ambitious and possible strategies for the African continent. For this purpose, the international organization launches to international public opinion, to Africa in particular, the possible goal of eradicating AIDS in this continent by the year 2030.
Progress has been strongest in the countries and regions that have the most financial investments, such as in eastern and southern Africa where new HIV infections have been reduced by 57% since 2010, according to the report.
The UNAIDS report does indeed bring positive results that some African countries have achieved. They mention Botswana, Eswatini, The United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe. These countries have reached the objectives ¨95-95-95¨. The aim of these objectives was to diagnose 95% of all HIV-positive individuals. Also, to get 95 percent of people living with AIDS know their serological status and provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 95% of those diagnosed and achieve viral suppression for 95% of those treated by 2030.
Even more surprising is the fact that 16 countries, eight of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where 65 percent of HIV-positive people live, are also close to achieving these results.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle facing this climate of optimism, in relation to Africa, is the state of Human Rights in the continent. Especially in those countries where prolonged war is affecting their people; countries that receive diverse, massive and complex migratory flows, and have developed xenophobic policies.
The report links this positive prospectives to two conditions: respect for human rights and establishment of legal frameworks.
The basic issue here is the institutional and socio-political management of respect for minorities, especially homosexuals. Otherwise it would be very difficult for a significant number of people to receive retroviral treatment. In countries where homosexual relationships have been outlawed, access to these treatments becomes very difficult, if not impossible.
Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights, recalled that: ¨We need political leadership that eradicates discrimination, inequalities, and guarantees that community organizations can work in a free and open civic space¨.
