While the number of AIDS-related deaths among children was reduced by 64% in 2010-2022, HIV still claimed the lives of approximately 84,000 children
Representative photo: iStock. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) claimed a life every minute in 2022, according to a new report by UNAIDS.
About 9.2 million people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could not access HIV treatment worldwide in 2022. Even some 2.1 million people who received treatment were not virally suppressed, noted the report titled The Path That Ends AIDS, published on July 13, 2023.
Data from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) showed that gains had been made, particularly in the absence of a vaccine. However, a lot remains to be achieved due to inequalities.
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Of the 39 million people living with HIV globally, 29.8 million are receiving life-saving treatment presently, the data revealed. From 2020-2022, an additional 1.6 million people received HIV treatment in each consecutive year. If this annual success can be maintained for the long term, the global target of 35 million people receiving HIV treatment by 2025 will be within reach.
Nevertheless, treatment progress has been slow in certain geographies, particularly in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. In these countries, only about half of the over two million people living with HIV received antiretroviral therapy in 2022, the report found.
Gender discrimination was another barrier. Men living with HIV were still significantly less likely than women living with HIV to be on treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, the report said.
“Ridding healthcare facilities of stigma and discrimination is crucial, along with removing laws and practices that make people, especially those from key populations, distrustful or fearful of health services,” the document noted.
While the number of AIDS-related deaths among children was reduced by 64 per cent in 2010-2022, the HIV pandemic still claimed the lives of approximately 84,000 children in 2022, it added.
“Treatment coverage lags for children (aged 0-14 years) and adolescents. Some 660,000 children living with HIV — about 43 per cent of the 1.5 million children living with HIV — were not receiving treatment in 2022,” the report said.
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While women and girls of all ages accounted for 63 per cent of all new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, only about 42 per cent of districts with high HIV incidence in the region are currently covered with dedicated prevention programs.
Moreover, 4,000 adolescent girls and young women acquired HIV every week in 2022. “Closing these gaps and making it easier for sexually active girls and women to access female-friendly biomedical prevention tools, such as oral PrEP and the dapivirine vaginal ring, would greatly reduce their risks of acquiring HIV,” the document recommended.
Some of these remaining challenges can be closed by filling the gaps in funding. HIV incidence has declined in regions with increased prevention funding, showed UNAIDS analysis.
Currently, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa are making the least headway against their HIV epidemics due to a lack of funding.
In 2022, $20.8 billion was available for HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries — a 2.6 per cent drop from 2021. The amount is far short of the $29.3 billion required by 2025. The funding substantially shot up in the early 2010s and has fallen back to 2013 levels, the UNAIDS data revealed.
“We are hopeful, but it is not the relaxed optimism that might come if all was heading as it should be. It is, instead, a hope rooted in seeing the opportunity for success. This opportunity is dependent on action,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said in a press release.
“The facts and figures shared in this report do not show that as a world we are already on the path, they show that we can be. The way is clear,” Byanyima added.
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