UN says lack of treatment means someone died due to HIV every minute in 2023
EDITH M. LEDERER | Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — Nearly 40 million people were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, last year, and more than 9 million weren’t getting any treatment. As a result, someone died of AIDS-related causes every minute, the U.N. said in a new report launched July 22.
While advances are being made to end the global AIDS pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking and new infections are rising in three regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and 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 the latest figure is more than double the target for 2025 of fewer than 250,000 deaths, according to the report by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the global effort to end the pandemic.
Gender inequality is exacerbating 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 marginalized communities that face stigma and discrimination — sex workers, men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs — also increased to 55 percent in 2023 from 45 percent 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 the report said in 2023 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 percent knew they were infected, 77 percent were accessing treatment, and for 72 percent the virus was suppressed, the report said
César Núñez, director of the UNAIDS New York office, told a news conference there has been progress in HIV treatments — injections that can stay in the body for six months — but the two doses cost $40,000 yearly, which is out of reach for all but the richest people with the virus.
He said UNAIDS has been asking the manufacturer to make it available at lower cost to low and middle-income countries.
Núñez said there have also been seven cases where people with HIV who were treated for leukemia emerged with no sign of the HIV virus in their system.
At present, he said, daily treatment with pills costs about $75 per person per year. It has allowed many countries to increase the number of people with HIV to receive treatment
Núñez said UNAIDS will continue advocating for a vaccine to prevent AIDS.