19th International AIDS Conference takes place in Washington DC
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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On Sunday in Washington, the opening of the XIX International AIDS Conference. In a message to its participants, the UN Secretary-General stated that he will make every effort to promote universal access to the prevention and treatment of the immunodeficiency virus. He promised to exert pressure on pharmaceutical companies to provide affordable medicines to HIV-infected people.
"I will continue to ask the state to respect and protect the rights of all people living with HIV or vulnerable to HIV and work with me to fulfill the promise that by 2015 a generation free of AIDS will become a reality," the UN Secretary-General said.
Ban Ki-moon recalled that a year ago the General Assembly at the high-level meeting adopted the Political Declaration, which defined new specific goals and commitments aimed at combating the immunodeficiency virus for the next five years.
The main among them is to eradicate cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015.
The Declaration also sets a goal by 2015 to halve the number of cases of sexual transmission of HIV and 50% of new HIV infections among injecting drug users. It was also decided by 2015 to provide access to antiretroviral drugs for 15 million people infected with HIV. States pledged to increase funding for HIV by 2015 to 24 million billion a year. The participants of the meeting agreed to take all possible measures to ensure that by 2015 all children were born free of HIV. "We will be able to achieve these goals if we reorient and intensify our work and invest more resources," the UN head said.
Recall that the first case of HIV / AIDS was detected on June 5, 1981. Since then, AIDS has claimed nearly 30 million lives. No country has escaped the terrible consequences of this global epidemic. Since the epidemic began, more than 60 million people have become infected with the immunodeficiency virus.
Today, 2400 young people aged 15 to 24 are infected with HIV every day in the world. This represents 40% of the total number of new HIV infections among adults
At the same time, opening the conference in Washington, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said that for the first time in the history of AIDS, there are more people receiving antiretroviral treatment than people who still need it.
"We have reversed the rates of new infections - their number has declined by 20% since 2001, and mortality has also decreased," said Michel Sidibé.
Mentioning the current difficult situation in connection with the unprecedented financial and economic crisis, Michel Sidibé urged states not to give up their commitments to fight HIV and not to weaken global solidarity in this direction.
More than 20 thousand delegates from all over the world gathered to participate in the conference.