UNAIDS Presents New Plan to Eradicate AIDS in 2030
The UNAIDS Program Coordinating Board (PCB) adopted a new Global Strategy on AIDS 2021-2026 to be able to get all countries and communities on track to eradicating AIDS as a threat to public health by 2030.
The PCB special session was celebrated on March 24th and 25th. The objective of the approved strategy is to “end inequalities, end AIDS”, as informed by the organization in a press release.
The plan recognizes that it is necessary to close the gaps that impede progress to end AIDS, and establishes new objectives to be achieved by 2025 and thus, drive a new commitment in order to end AIDS.
“This year marks 40 years since the first AIDS cases were documented and 25 years since the creation of UNAIDS”, said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director for the organization and added that, just as with HIV, “COVID-19 has shown that inequality kills”. The current pandemic of the novel coronavirus, has broadened existent inequalities that halt progress in order to end AIDS.
“That is why I’m proud that our new strategy places the fight against inequalities right in the middle. We must take advantage of this moment to guarantee health equality for all with the aim of defeating COVID-19 and end AIDS”, she stated.
The three strategic priorities of the new UNAIDS plan are:
- Maximize fair and equal access to integral HIV services centered on people.
- Knock down legal and social barriers in order to achieve results regarding HIV.
- Resourcing and fully sustaining responses to HIV and integrating them into health systems, social protection, and humanitarian settings.
If the objectives and commitments of the strategy are achieved, the number of people who get HIV will go down from 1.7 million in 2019 to less than 370,000 in 2025, and the number of people who die of AIDS related illnesses will decrease from 690,000 in 2019 to less than 250,000 in 2025. The objective of eliminating new HIV infections in boys and girls, will make the number of new HIV infections to drop from 150,000 in 2019 to less than 22,000 in 2025.