'It’s possible to end AIDS as public health threat by 2030'

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Ending AIDS as a public health threat by the end of this decade is possible, according to Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV&AIDS (UNAIDS).

But there is a catch.

"It is possible only if ground-breaking HIV medicines are accessible to all who need them,” she said on Wednesday (October 16).

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) occurs at the most advanced stage of infection.

There is no cure for HIV infection. 

However, access to effective HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care has enabled millions of people living with HIV to lead long and healthy lives.

In a post on social media platform X, Byanyima said they can achieve the goal to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 if they also keep human rights at the centre of their responses, and if they urgently restructure the “choking debt” of developing countries so that they can invest in health, education and social protection.

In June 2023, UNAIDS released a report highlighting that ending AIDS is a political and financial choice and that the countries and leaders who are already following the path are achieving extraordinary results.

It said Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Zimbabwe had already achieved the “95-95-95” targets.

That means 95% of the people who are living with HIV knowing their HIV status, 95% of the people who know that they are living with HIV being on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and 95% of people who are on treatment being virally suppressed.

A further 16 other countries, eight of them in sub-Saharan Africa, the region which accounts for 65% of all people living with HIV, are also close to doing so, the report, titled 'The Path that Ends AIDS' said.

The number of people on antiretroviral treatment worldwide rose almost fourfold, from 7.7 million in 2010 to 29.8 million in 2022.

However, the report said AIDS claimed a life every minute in 2022, adding that around 9.2 million people still missed out on treatment, including 660,000 children living with HIV.

In Uganda, there were 1.4 million people living with HIV as of December 2022, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission.