Geneva, (EFE) – Some 650,000 people died from AIDS-related diseases in 2021, a decrease of 5.7% compared to the previous year, but the covid pandemic, together with other factors, is weakening the fight against this disease, warns the new report of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The report shows a stabilization in new HIV infections, since the figure for 2021 was the same as the previous year (1.5 million), but worryingly, these are growing in regions such as Asia-Pacific, alienating the community of its goal of eradicating this disease by 2030.
“The data shows that the global response to AIDS is in serious danger,” stressed the executive director of UNAIDS, Ugandan Winnie Byanyima, who assured that “the (AIDS) pandemic has prospered during that of covid.”
OTHER HEALTH EMERGENCIES REDUCE FUNDING
One of the data that shows a weakening of the fight is the decline in funding against it: the 21.6 billion dollars dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS in 2020 fell to 21.4 billion in 2021, and this is 6% less than in 2010.
The United Nations agency estimates that currently some 38.4 million people are carriers of the HIV virus, 47% more than at the beginning of the century, although three out of four have access to retroviral therapy, when 22 years ago they were barely one. out of fifty.
The report shows particularly worrying figures on the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the child population: 1.7 million children under the age of 14 live with the virus, and almost half of them (800,000) do not receive treatment.
“In 2021 there were 160,000 infections in children, and 75,000 of them were due to the mother not being able to access the necessary therapy during pregnancy or breastfeeding,” UNAIDS statistician Mary Mary said when presenting the report. Mahy.
Mahy cited factors such as the sharp drop of up to two-thirds in male circumcisions during the pandemic, an effective method of reducing infections, as one of the factors explaining the slowdown in the decline in HIV/AIDS infections and deaths after decades. of progress.
FAR FROM THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
This slowdown, warns the study, will mean that in 2024 there will still be around 1.2 million annual HIV/AIDS infections, three times more than the 370,000 that UNAIDS predicted there would be then on the path to eradication of the disease that is included in the so-called United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Eastern and Southern Africa remained the region most affected by this 40-year pandemic last year, with 280,000 deaths and 670,000 new infections, bringing the total number of people living with HIV in that area to 20.6 million.
Both Central and West Africa (5 million people living with HIV in total) and Asia Pacific (6 million) came in second, with 140,000 deaths in the two regions and 260,000 and 190,000 new infections, respectively.
Western Europe and North America recorded 13,000 AIDS-related deaths and 63,000 new infections last year, bringing the number of people living with the virus to 2.3 million in both regions combined.
In Latin America, where HIV-positive people rise to 2.2 million, new infections in 2021 rose to 110,000 and deaths to 29,000.
40 MILLION DEAD IN 40 YEARS
Since the start of the pandemic four decades ago, UNAIDS estimates that some 84.2 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and more than 40 million have died from AIDS-related illnesses.
However, the peak of annual cases occurred almost a quarter of a century ago (2.8 million in 1998), and the peak of deaths (1.8 million) almost two decades ago, in 2004.
The United Nations agency calculates that around 15% of seropositive people, or almost six million people, are unaware that they are HIV carriers.
