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home / 世界杯决赛2022

progress against the hiv pandemic has faltered: report

the 371-page report was launched wednesday at a press conference ahead of the 24th international aids conference in montreal.

by susan schwartz

jul 28 2022
read time 3 minute read
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winnie byanyima, executive director of unaids, releases the 2022 update on the global aids situation at a news conference wednesday, july 27, 2022 in montreal. the world aids conference begins here this weekend. ryan remiorz / the canadian press
progress in hiv prevention and treatment is faltering around the world and endangering millions, says a new report by the joint united nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids).

the 371-page report was launched wednesday at a press conference ahead of the 24th international aids conference , which begins friday in montreal. the response to the hiv/aids pandemic has been derailed by global crisis including the covid-19 pandemic and the war in ukraine, said unaids executive director winnie byanyima, one of several speakers.

“in 2021, we lost one person every minute to an aids-related illness, even though we have the medicines needed to save those lives. if those trends continue, we could see 7.7 million additional aids-related deaths in this decade,” she said.
according to the unaids report, new hiv infections fell globally in 2021 by only 3.6 per cent from 2020 — the smallest annual decline in new hiv infections since 2016. in asia and the pacific, the world’s most populous region, new hiv infections are rising where they had been falling. and in eastern and southern africa, rapid progress made in previous years slowed significantly in 2021. about 650,000 people died from aids-related illnesses and there were 1.5 million new hiv infections — over one million more than global targets.
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these infections occurred disproportionately among young women and adolescent girls, the report said, with a new infection in that population every two minutes in 2021. this gendered impact, particularly for african girls and young women, happened amid disruption of hiv prevention and treatment services as the covid-19 pandemic kept millions of girls out of school, said byanyima. in sub-saharan africa, adolescent girls and young women are three times more likely than adolescent boys and young men to acquire hiv.
the report, called in danger, also found faltering efforts in ensuring access to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment to people living with hiv. their numbers grew more slowly in 2021 than in more than a decade. in 2021, there were 38.4 million people living with hiv. although three-quarters have access to antiretroviral treatment, about 10 million do not — and the gap in hiv treatment coverage between children and adults is increasing, byanyima said.
the report also found race-based inequalities — with greater declines in new hiv diagnoses among white people than black people in the united states and the united kingdom, for instance; in countries including canada, the u.s. and australia, the rate of hiv acquisition is higher in indigenous communities than in non-indigenous communities.
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despite decades of advocacy and education, discriminatory attitudes toward people living with hiv remain. in 2021, so-called key populations — sex workers and their clients, gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender people — accounted for 70 per cent of all hiv infections.
the risk of acquiring hiv is 35 times higher among people who inject drugs, 30 times higher for female sex workers than for other women, 28 times higher among gay men and other men who have sex with men than other men and 14 times higher for transgender women than other adult women, according to the report.
dr. anthony fauci, director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases in the united states and chief medical adviser to u.s. president joe biden, said the unaids report is “a reminder that the global plague” of hiv/aids “continues to rage,” even though much of our attention diverted to the global pandemic of covid and now, monkeypox.
“all of us in the global hiv community must work to reach vulnerable communities,” he said, and the report is a reminder that “we can do better in this, the fifth decade of aids. the priority must be to implement better treatment modalities, while improving and optimizing the next generation of interventions.”

the covid pandemic and, now, monkeypox, mean “people are exhausted with epidemics and pandemics. we have to fight twice as hard to get hiv back on the radar screen, where it belongs,” fauci said.

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sschwartz@postmedia.com
susan schwartz, montreal gazette
susan schwartz, montreal gazette

we used typewriters when i started at the gazette, and big black rotary phones. nearly everyone smoked. today’s newsroom looks different but the work – reporting and informing my readers – remains constant and rewarding. i am grateful to my adviser at mcgill, where i was a neurobiology major, for steering me to journalism. undoubtedly, he realized i wasn’t cut out for neurobiology.

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