Addis Ababa: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday the world was headed for a “generation free of AIDS”, after UNAIDS reported a 35-percent drop in new HIV infections from 15 years ago.
“The world has delivered. We have achieved and exceeded the goals regarding AIDS. We are on the way to a generation free of AIDS,” Ban said.
An UNAIDS report released yesterday in Geneva said major strides were made since the advent in 1996 of anti-retroviral drugs. Although new HIV infections declined to two million in 2014 against 3.1 million 14 years ago and the number of new infections has noticeably decreased or remained stagnant, UNAIDS warned spending had plateaued. There are currently 36.9 million people living with HIV around the world. Around March this year, 15 million of them were accessing anti-retroviral therapy. “In 2011 world leaders called for reaching 15 million people with life-saving HIV treatment by 2015. And that is exactly what the world did - ahead of schedule,” said UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe in a report .
UNAIDS called for AIDS spending of $32bn annually between now and 2020 in the hope of eliminating the virus by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region worst hit by AIDS with 25.8 million people living with HIV. Last year, there were 1.4 million new HIV infections -- a 39 percent drop from 2000. Asia is a distant second with five million cases but there has been a recrudescence of new infections.
AFP
