Geneva. If the world wants to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, as was decided years ago, billions will have to be invested. The intermediate targets set for 2020 have all been missed, as the United Nations program UNAIDS reported in Geneva on Thursday, the 40th anniversary of the first description of the then-mysterious disease. Since then, it has been estimated that approximately 35 million people have died from complications related to AIDS.
The failure isn’t just because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has consumed resources in many countries and prevented people from getting tested or taking medicine. According to UNAIDS, for many years, international funding to fight AIDS has been declining. Next week the United Nations wants to launch a new call for donations at the AIDS summit in New York.
“New mobility is urgently needed”
“The Covid pandemic has shown politicians how vulnerable we all are, how economic life can be brought to a standstill, how people die,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the German press agency, UNAIDS.
Therefore, new dynamism has to be developed in the fight against AIDS. “We’ve proved (in the coronavirus pandemic) that science can create solutions in no time, and we’ve proven that governments can mobilize resources,” Bynaima said. So he is cautiously optimistic that ending the HIV epidemic will also be possible. (dpa)
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