The Covid-19 pandemic and other current global crises have had the effect of slowing progress made in the fight against AIDS, UNAIDS warned on Wednesday in its annual report, entitled Danger. While new HIV infections worldwide continued to decline last year (by 3.6% compared to 2020), it was the smallest reduction since 2016.
“Over the past two years, the multiple and simultaneous crises that have shaken the world have had a devastating impact on people infected with HIV, and have set back the world’s response to the AIDS pandemic”, warns this report, published at occasion of the opening of the International AIDS Conference, being held in Montreal, Canada.
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Covid-19 has notably disrupted access to treatment and prevention services. The war in Ukraine, and the resulting economic crisis, have for their part caused drying up or redirection of funds.
Gap in access to treatment between children and adults
The number of HIV-positive people accessing treatment did continue to increase in 2021, but only by 1.47 million, compared to 2 million in previous years. This is the smallest increase since 2009.
The most fragile populations are the most affected, underlines the report. “In some countries, it is the poor who lack access. In others, it is ethnic minorities, such as in Britain, where the reduction in new diagnoses is greater for white people than black people,” the UNAIDS executive director told a press conference. , Winnie Byanyima.
About 1.5 million new HIV infections were reported in 2021, or more than 4,000 people per day. And 650,000 people died of AIDS last year, or one death every minute. Young women and adolescent girls are particularly affected: one of them is newly infected every two minutes.
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The report also points out that the gap in access to treatment between children and adults is widening, rather than closing. In 2021, while 70% of adults living with HIV were receiving antiretroviral treatment, this was the case for only 41% of children. That is about 800,000 HIV-positive children receiving no treatment. Children accounted for 4% of the population living with HIV in 2021, but 15% of virus-related deaths.
People who inject drugs, sex workers and gay men continued to be the populations most at risk.
“A call to action”
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said he feared that fatigue from the epidemic could cause a hole in dedicated resources. “With a disease that we have fought together for over 40 years now, it makes it difficult to maintain motivation,” he said.
Adding Covid-19, and now monkeypox, “people are getting exhausted from epidemics and pandemics, so I think our challenge is to fight twice as hard to get HIV back on radar screens,” he said. he added.
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Additional funds must be committed today to achieve the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, argues UNAIDS.
In 2021, the international resources available to fight HIV were 6% less generous than in 2010. “Leaders must not take this huge red alert for a stop sign,” writes Winnie Byanyima. “This report is not an admission of failure. It is a call to action.”
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