Medical aid group urges better HIV treatment in West Africa

The delegation is headed by Tania Dussey-Cavassini, assistant director of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), and is composed of representatives of the FOPH, the Directorate of Political Affairs (PD) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) within the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), as well as of civil society (Medicus Mundi).

“We also stand by the common African position to this United Nations General Assembly high level meeting that advocates for 95:95:95 targets by 2030”, he said.

Progress made during the past 15 years meant that more than 17 million people now received life-saving antiretroviral treatment, Ban said.

Chingandu said despite the declining economy in the country there are indications that the government is continuing with its obligation to fight HIV/AIDS using the monhtly AIDS levy.

Mr Nadda said, India will need to increase its investments substantially to nearly double the number of people on ARV treatment in less than five years. “Then there’s this other reality that we will never reach those targets so long as critical populations like men who have sex with men are criminalized and stigmatized, because when they are they can’t and won’t access treatment”. Mandeep Dhaliwal, team leader of the U.N. Development Program’s HIV, Health and Development Practice, said she worked for an NGO before joining the U.N. and argued it is time to re-examine the rule that allows any U.N. member to veto a non-governmental organization’s participation. “About 2.1 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2015, two thirds of whom were in Africa which remains the epicentre of HIV”, Dr Kasonde sad.

MSF has been treating people with HIV/AIDS since the late 1990s and now supports treatment for more than 250,000 people living with HIV in 19 countries, primarily in Africa.

The World Health Organization announced on Wednesday that Thailand has become the first Asian country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.

During the event, UNAIDS also released global data for children that showed that new HIV infections among children have declined globally by 50% since 2010 – down from 290 000 in 2010 to 150,000 in 2015.

Nadda said India is proud of being one of the leading partners in the global fight against AIDS epidemic and is collaborating actively with a range of partner countries and other stakeholders including the UNAIDS, the joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS.

[1] UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 goal aims to ensure that by 2020, 90 percent of all people living with HIV know their status; 90 percent of people living with HIV have begun antiretroviral treatment; and 90 percent of people on treatment have no detectable virus in their blood (‘viral suppression’).

“We have to be accountable for the commitments we make leaving no one behind”, Lykketoft said, adding that eradicating AIDS will be one of the greatest achievements of this generation. “They believed that more equitable treatment and access was possible, and they made sure that we responded”, Ban said. Deaths due to AIDS in India have been reduced by almost 55 per cent since 2007, he said.

UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, 8 June 2016-A progressive, new and actionable Political Declaration on Ending AIDS was adopted on June 8, 2016 by Member States at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, taking place in New York, United States of America.