UNAIDS Sets New Goals Regarding HIV for 2025
As the deadline is about to expire for completion of the so called 90-90-90 goals, and since these were not met, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) called on the nations to set new goals to achieve in 2025.
The 90-90-90 goals which consisted of getting 90% of people with HIV to know their diagnosis, 90% of them receiving antiretroviral treatment and 90% of people under treatment to achieve an undetectable viral load (an amount of the virus in their blood so low that currently available tests are not able to detect it).
In its mid-year report, UNAIDS had made aware that said goals would not be achieved, in part due to profoundly uneven progress among and within the countries, but also due to the health emergency generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In light of this, the international organization’s most recent report, published on the eve of World AIDS Day (December 1st), asks countries to adopt a new set of bold, ambitious, yet achievable goals for HIV.
“if we can achieve these objectives, the world will be once again on track to put an end to AIDS as a public health threat for 2030”, UNAIDS stated in a press release.
The new objectives state, first, to achieve 95% coverage regarding services related with HIV for every subpopulation that already has the virus or faces greater risks of getting it. This focus centered on people, will allow focusing especially on key areas, so as to achieve “being more prepared to control the epidemics that affect them”.
The objectives for 2025 also foresee ensuring a proper environment so that response to HIV can be effective, this through achieving that less than 10% of the countries in the world have laws and policies which punish people with HIV, that less than 10% of people who have the virus suffer from stigma and discrimination and that less than 10% is a victim of gender inequality.
As a matter of consideration UNAIDS points out that insufficient investments and actions both in HIV as well as in other pandemics are what left the world exposed to COVID-19. “If health systems and social security safety nets had been stronger, the world would have been in a better position to face the spread of the novel coronavirus”. And especially, it has been observed that HIV programs “must be fully financed, both in times of economic surplus, as well as in times of crisis”.