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The XIX International AIDS Conference takes place in Washington, DC
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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The 19th International AIDS Conference opened in Washington on Sunday. In a message to participants, the UN Secretary-General said he would work hard to promote universal access to prevention and treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus. He promised to press pharmaceutical companies to provide affordable drugs to people living with HIV.
“I will continue to ask States to respect and protect the rights of all people living with or vulnerable to HIV and to work with me to deliver on the promise of an AIDS-free generation by 2015,” the UN Secretary-General said.
Ban Ki-moon recalled that a year ago, the General Assembly, at a high-level meeting, adopted a Political Declaration, which set new specific goals and commitments aimed at combating the immunodeficiency virus over the next five years.
The main one is to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015.
The Declaration also sets a goal of halving the number of sexually transmitted HIV cases and reducing new HIV infections among injecting drug users by 50% by 2015. It was also decided to ensure access to antiretroviral drugs for 15 million HIV-infected people by 2015. States promised to increase funding for the fight against HIV to 24 million billion per year by 2015. The participants in the meeting agreed to take all possible measures to ensure that by 2015 all children are born free of HIV. “We can achieve these goals if we refocus and intensify our work and invest more resources,” the head of the UN said.
Let us recall that the first case of HIV/AIDS was identified on June 5, 1981. Since then, AIDS has claimed almost 30 million lives. No country has escaped the terrible consequences of this global epidemic. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 60 million people have been infected with the immunodeficiency virus.
Today, 2,400 young people aged 15 to 24 are infected with HIV every day worldwide. This represents 40% of the total number of new HIV infections among the adult population.
At the same time, opening the conference in Washington, Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS), reported that for the first time in the history of AIDS, there are more people receiving antiretroviral treatment than people still in need of it.
"We have reversed the rate of new infections - their number has decreased by 20% since 2001, and the death rate has also decreased," said Michel Sidibé.
Referring to the current difficult situation due to the unprecedented financial and economic crisis, Michel Sidibé called on States not to abandon their commitments to combat HIV and not to weaken global solidarity in this area.
More than 20 thousand delegates from all over the world gathered to participate in the conference.