The number of new HIV infections is declining, more people than ever are receiving treatmentand deaths due to the disease and its complications are falling, but progress remains precarious, warns a new UN report.
Released today in Paris, the report — entitled Miles to go—closing gaps, breaking barriers, righting injustices — identifies some worrying trends, noting that the rate of infection is still rising in 50 countries, and that most of the treatment benefits affected adults, not children.
"We are sounding the alarm," Michel Sidibé, the executive director of UNAIDS, told reporters. "Entire regions are falling behind, the huge gains we made for children are not being sustained, women are still most affected, resources are still not matching political commitments and key populations continue to be ignored."
In 2014, UN members pledged to end the global AIDS epidemic by 2030. But the report says that the world risks missing many of the ambitious shared targets.
Among its key findings:
940,000 people died from HIV-related causes in 2017, the second straight year the number has fallen below one million, but far off the goal of 500,000 annual deaths by 2020.
1.8 million people were newly infected last year — almost half the number at the epidemic's peak in 1996, but 75 per cent more than the targeted 2017 number.
2.3 million more people accessed treatment, the biggest annual jump to date, meaning that 60 per cent of the world's 36.9 million HIV sufferers now receive care. But the target of 30 million in treatment by 2020 seems in doubt.
Overall, it is estimated that 80 million people have been infected, and 35.4 million have died since HIV was identified in the early 1980s.
The report finds that there has been significant progress in eastern and southern Africa — the region most affected by HIV — with a 30 per cent reduction in new infections since 2010. But those gains are being offset by a doubling of new cases in eastern Europe and central Asia, and a 25 per cent increase in North Africa and the Middle East. Read more via CBC