Need to provide everyone equitable access to HIV treatment: WHO

The World Health Organisation on Thursday highlighted the urgent need to provide everyone equitable access to HIV prevention, treatment and care to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.Globally, an estimated 38.4 million people are living with HIV. In 2021, an estimated 1.5 million people acquired HIV and around 6,50,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia. In the South-East Asia Region, an estimated 3.8 million people are living with HIV, accounting for around 10 per cent of the global burden, she said on World AIDS Day. In 2021, an estimated 82,000 people in the region died of AIDS-related causes, accounting for more than 12 per cent of the global burden, Singh said. ”The inequalities which keep the AIDS epidemic alive are not inevitable. Together, we must end each and every inequality and accelerate progress towards our targets and goals. ”On World AIDS Day, WHO reiterates its commitment to achieve a region and world in which AIDS is no longer a public health threat, leaving no individual, community or population behind,” she said.Amid the Covid response and recovery, the region continues to take targeted action to end HIV-related inequalities and expand service coverage in line with its priority on achieving universal health coverage and the region’s new Integrated Action Plan for viral hepatitis, HIV and sexually transmitted infections (I-RAP 2022-2026), launched in September 2022, Singh said.Between 2010 and 2021, new HIV infections in the region declined by 42 per cent and HIV-related deaths reduced by 63 per cent.’We have people and populations to reach, and progress to achieve. Across the region, almost 95 per cent of new HIV infections are among key populations such as sex workers, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, and transgender people,” Singh said. The senior WHO official said just 22 per cent of young people have knowledge about HIV prevention, and coverage of testing for people who inject drugs has significant room for improvement. Access to game-changing innovations such as HIV self-testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis remains highly uneven, both within and between countries, she said.