SOMEONE died every minute from Aids-related causes last year, a new United Nations report has revealed.
The report published on Monday by UNAids, the world body’s agency leading the global effort to end the pandemic, said that, last year, nearly 40 million people were living with the HIV virus that causes Aids and over nine million were receiving no treatment.
While advances are being made to end the global Aids pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking and new infections are on the rise in three regions: the Middle East and north Africa, eastern Europe, central Asia and Latin America.
In 2023, around 630,000 people died from Aids-related illnesses, a significant decline from the 2.1 million deaths in 2004.
But, according to the report, the latest figure is more than double the target for 2025 of fewer than 250,000 deaths.
Gender inequality is heightening the risks for girls and women, the report said, citing the extraordinarily high incidence of HIV among adolescents and young women in parts of Africa.
The proportion of new infections globally among marginalised communities that face stigma and discrimination — sex workers, men who have sex with other men and people who inject drugs — also increased to 55 per cent in 2023 from 45 per cent in 2010, it said.
UNAids executive director Winnie Byanyima said: “World leaders pledged to end the Aids pandemic as a public health threat by 2030 and they can uphold their promise, but only if they ensure that the HIV response has the resources it needs and that the human rights of everyone are protected.”
As part of that pledge, leaders vowed to reduce annual new HIV infections to below 370,000 by 2025, but in 2023, the report said, new infections were more than three times higher at 1.3 million.
Last year, among the 39.9 million people globally living with HIV, 86 per cent knew they were infected, 77 per cent were receiving treatment and for 72 per cent the virus was suppressed, the report said.
Cesar Nunez, director of the UNAids New York office, told a news conference that there had been progress in HIV treatments — injections that can stay in the body for six months — but that the two doses cost $40,000 (around £31,000) annually, which puts them out of reach for all but the richest people with the virus.
He said UNAids had been asking the manufacturer to make it available at lower cost to low and middle-income countries.
