The study revealed that despite the annual number of new infections declining from the peak rate of 3.3 million in 1997, the number of new infections is relatively constant in the past 10 years, with a drop of just 0.7 per cent a year between 2005 and 2015 compared to the fall of 2.7 per cent a year between 1997 and 2005.
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“On behalf of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and PEPFAR, I’m delighted to present the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (The Alliance) and the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) as inaugural recipients of The LGBT Fund”, said Sir Elton John, founder of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
A massive scale-up of efforts from governments and global agencies will be required to meet the goal of ending AIDS, along with better detection and treatment programmes and improving the affordability of antiretroviral drugs, the researchers said.
“We wanted to see a particular immune picture that would suggest that a big efficacy trial would be likely to yield results”, Linda Gail Bekker of Cape Town’s Desmond Tutu HIV Centre told the network.
The scientists said this is urgent because the cost of providing ARVs to more than 35 million people is unsustainable. “We are investing with our voices, our capacity, and our dollars to help achieve an AIDS-free generation in which no one is left behind, in the USA and around the world”.
Scaling up HIV treatment in developing countries is of key concern to the experts meeting in South Africa.
Gates, meanwhile, warned that Africa is “chronically underprepared” for a looming demographic bulge in young people, who are most at risk for HIV.
One of the main problems is that people do not know they are HIV positive because of the stigma around testing.
“It is time for us to step up and acknowledge that stigma and discrimination still act as the greatest barrier to us defeating this disease once and for all”.
“If the clinics are closed down because they’re LGBT, we can give medicine”.
“The truth is that young people have always been the voice of change”, he said.
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Baeten said the study was good news for serodiscordant couples – where one partner is HIV positive and the other HIV negative – who want to have children. Without education and without empowerment, HIV will win. But imagine what would happen. if children were given the tools to protect their health‚ to speak out against stigma‚ and support their friends and family.
