New Report from UNAIDS Finds Major Funding Gaps and Massive Inequalities Borne by Key Populations Mean the World is Off-Track to End AIDS as a Public Health Threat
A new report released today by UNAIDS shows the world is off-track to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, a Sustainable Development Goal set by UN member states, including the United States, in 2016.
UNAIDS reports:
In 2022, just US $20.8 billion was available for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries, a 2.6% reduction from 2021 and $8.5 billion short of what is needed by 2025 to get on track to end AIDS as a public health threat.
Key populations continue to face massive inequalities in accessing testing, treatment, and prevention services, because of criminalization, stigma, and discrimination. While the global media HIV prevalence among adults was 0.7% in 2022, it was nearly 15 times higher among trans people (10.3%), 11 times higher among gay men and other men who have sex with men (7.5%), and more than 3.5 times higher among sex workers (2.5%).
Only 57% of children with HIV have access to lifesaving treatment, compared with 77% of adults. Without treatment access, 50% of all children with HIV will die before their second birthday.
Children ages 0-14 years lag well behind adults in accessing HIV testing: just 63% [49-86%] of children know their HIV status, versus 90% [76->98%] of women and 83% [70-98%] of men.
Nearly 1 in 4 people living with HIV are still not accessing lifesaving treatment (76% [65-89%].
One person died of AIDS every minute in 2022.
“Governments have not chosen the path illuminated by science and human rights that would end AIDS by 2030. UNAIDS is describing a path, but the world is not on it and it’s becoming increasingly unlikely we’ll achieve critical targets by 2030,” said Asia Russell, Executive Director of Health GAP. “This new report comes at a time of expanding, violent persecution of key populations in many high-burden countries, an ever-growing HIV funding gap, persistently unacceptably high rates of AIDS deaths, and the serious, unprecedented threat to PEPFAR reauthorization playing out right now in Washington, DC based on politicians’ lies about the program in service to their own electoral politics.
“If ending AIDS by 2030 is the goal, the world must urgently change direction because we are dangerously off track.”
