Asia Russell, Executive Director of the Health Global Access Project (Health GAP) issued the following statement:
“The global AIDS response is profoundly off track. This harsh reality is the consequence of major funders, in particular the U.S. government, refusing to invest in life-saving funding increases, exacerbating scandalous inequities in treatment and prevention access that are leaving millions of people waiting for life-saving services.
“Powerful HIV treatment and prevention tools mean we can defeat HIV—but the full impact of these tools is out of reach. The effects of seven years of deadly U.S. flat funding, European governments abdicating their donor commitments, and countries around the world refusing to realize the human rights of people with HIV and communities at greatest risk of stigma, discrimination, and criminalization mean a grave risk that the AIDS response will fall irreversibly off track.”
The UNAIDS report, released today ahead of the opening of the 22nd International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam on July 23, 2018, points to grave trends, such as: