The current event is themed “Access Equity Rights Now”, which means, among other things, a call to action to work together and reach people who do not yet have access to comprehensive treatment, prevention, care and support services.
Advertisement
Yet fear of testing keeps many young people unaware of their status. “This is the challenge facing experts gathered in South Africa”.
Cyril Ramaphosa, South African Deputy President said, “At this conference we will hear the debate, the advances, how far we have advanced in terms of research, we will hear about better drugs, about strategies that have reduced the rates of infection and improved access to treatment but we will also hear that the struggle is far from over”.
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) – British musician Elton John on Wednesday committed money for protecting LGBT people in Africa, saying that leaving them behind in the fight against AIDS will only increase the spread of the disease.
“HIV is also transmitted by sexism, racism and homophobia”.
He spoke Wednesday at a global AIDS conference in South Africa that has also attracted philanthropist Bill Gates, actress Charlize Theron and Britain’s Prince Harry.
Michel Sidibe speaks during the TAC March in Durban.
Listen, truly listen, to what she has to say.
In 2012 at a previous Aids conference Rwanda and Uganda said they had begun to impose a levy on the use of mobile phones to fund health programmes, and Botswana, Gabon and Malawi, among others, had been investigating such a levy specifically for Aids financing.
These questions will be at the heart of the 21st International Conference of fight against AIDS.
South Africa’s official attitude to AIDS at that meeting in 2000 and for several years afterward set back the country so badly that more than 330,000 people died because the government withheld HIV drugs, a Harvard study found. In Ukraine, for example, arresting and locking up people who inject drugs may account for half of all new HIV infections among this population – concentrating drug users in crowded, unhealthy conditions without proper treatment for opioid dependence creates a “perfect storm” of increased risk of HIV, both in prison and in the communities to which they return. Mr Ban told the conference today that the funding remains a stumbling block in achieving this goal.
Almost 2 million people become HIV-positive every year, and regions like Eastern Europe and Central Asia saw a 57 percent rise in new infections in the last five years. Yet millions of people around the world still don’t have access to treatment. The global target is to have universal health coverage by 2030.
Annual deaths from HIV/Aids had been declining at a steady pace from a peak of 1.8 million in 2005, to 1.2 million in 2015, partly due to the scale-up of ART.
Infections are soaring in North Africa and the Middle East, which now has the fastest-growing epidemic.
“With these countries sometimes, it may take 50 years”.
Advertisement
Globally, new infections have fallen by only an average of 0.7% per year between 2005 and 2015, compared to the 2.7% drop per year between 1997 and 2005. Zimbabwe has the fifth highest HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa at 15%. She voiced her concerns during the opening speech at the conference in Durban, Africa: “I think it’s time we acknowledge that something is terribly wrong”.
