Health

UNAIDS calls for urgent global action as progress against HIV falters

Published

2 years ago

July 28, 2022

UNAIDS calls for urgent global action as progress against HIV falters

New data from Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) data released on Wednesday showed that the decline in new HIV infections which could lead to full-blown AIDS had slowed.

The report revealed that during the last two years of COVID-19 and other global crises, progress against the HIV pandemic faltered, resources shrunk, and millions of lives remained at risk as a result.

The name of the latest report by the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS, In Danger”, coincides with the International AIDS Conference, which started Wednesday in Montreal, Canada.

According to UNAIDS, globally, the number of new infections dropped by only 3.6 per cent between 2020 and 2021, the smallest annual decline in new HIV infections since 2016.

The agency warned that progress in prevention and treatment had faltered worldwide, putting millions of lives at risk.

“In 2021, there were 1.5 million new HIV infections and 650,000 AIDS-related deaths. This translates to 4,000 new HIV infections every day,” Mary Mahy, UNAIDS Director a.i. Data for Impact said.

“That’s 4,000 people who will need to be tested, started on treatment, avoid infecting their partners and stay on treatment for the rest of their lives.

“It also translates to 1,800 deaths every day due to AIDS, or one death every minute.”

It shows how new HIV infections are now rising where they had been falling, in places such as Asia and the Pacific, the world’s most populous region. In East and Southern Africa, rapid progress from previous years significantly slowed in 2021.

In spite of effective HIV treatment and tools to prevent and detect infection, the pandemic had thrived during COVID-19, in mass displacement settings, and other global crises put a strain on resources and reshaped development financing decisions, to the detriment of HIV programmes.

“If current trends continue, we expect that, in 2025, we’ll have 1.2 million people newly infected with HIV in that year. Again, that’s three times more than the 2025 target of 370.000,” Mahy said.

According to the UNAIDS report, voluntary male circumcisions that can reduce infection in men by 60 per cent, have slowed in the past two years.

The UN agency also noticed a slowing in treatment roll-out over the same period.

One of the most promising preventive interventions is pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as it eliminates the risk of contracting the virus after exposure.

The number of people accessing PrEP doubled between 2020 and 2021, from about 820,000 to 1.6 million, primarily in Southern Africa, according to the report.

“But it is still far from the target set by UNAIDS of 10 million people receiving PrEP by 2025, with cost pushing it out of reach of many, globally.

“Marked inequalities within and between countries have also stalled progress in the HIV response, and the disease itself has further widened vulnerabilities.

“With a new infection occurring every two minutes in 2021 among young women and teenage girls, it is a demographic that remains particularly exposed.”

It noted that the gendered HIV impact, particularly in Africa, had become clearer than ever during COVID-19, with millions of girls out of school, spikes in teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence, and disruption to key HIV treatment and prevention services.

According to it, in sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls and young women are three times as likely to acquire HIV as boys and young men.

Studies showed that when girls go to and finish school, their risk of acquiring HIV was significantly reduced.

“Millions of girls have been denied the opportunity to go to school as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

“Millions of them might never return and that has a damaging impact, as does the economic distress that has been caused” by the pandemic,” explained Ben Philips, Director of Communications at UNAIDS.

Racial diagnostic disparities have also exacerbated HIV risks. Declines in new HIV diagnoses have been greater among white populations than among black and indigenous people in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia.

The UN agency recognises six countries that have removed laws criminalising same sex-sex relations.

At least nine have introduced legal avenues for changing gender markers and names, without the requirement of undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

Nevertheless, progress on removing punitive laws that increase the risk of HIV infection and death for marginalised people is still insufficient, including LGBTI people, people injecting drugs, and sex workers.

“We have seen countries altering their laws to permit harsher sentences in cases of HIV exposure,” Ms Liana Moro, Technical Officer Programme Monitoring and Reporting at UNAIDS, said.

UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, in a statement, said: “It is still possible for leaders to get the response back on track to end AIDS by 2030

“Ending AIDS will cost much less money than not ending AIDS. Importantly, actions needed to end AIDS will also better prepare the world to protect itself against the threats of future pandemics.”

The UNAIDS estimated that 38.4 million people lived with HIV in 2021.

A full 70 per cent of them were receiving treatment and 68 per cent were successfully keeping the virus at bay.

UNAIDS calls for urgent global action as progress against HIV falters

Health

NSCDC Takes Medical Outreach to Community in Nasarawa

Published

5 days ago

January 17, 2025

Ochuwa Ibrahim

NSCDC Takes Medical Outreach to Community in Nasarawa

By: Michael Mike

The Nigeria Security and Civil. Defence Corps have continued to strengthen collaborations with one of the best HMOs in Nigeria, the United Healthcare International Ltd., this is in a bid to improve the well being of the serving officers and some host communities and also improve on grassroot security techniques and effective information gathering to forestall criminality.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a medical outreach organised by the NSCDC Commandant General, Dr Ahmed Audi, said the partnership with the United Healthcare International has positively impacted the Corps hence in order to give back to the communities and further foster and improve on the existing synergy between NSCDC and host communities, the Medical Health Service Department of the NSCDC organized the medical outreach programme to promote effective collaborations.

Delivering a goodwill message while representing the CG at the opening ceremony, ACG Ilelaboye Oyejide reiterated the commitment of the Corps to enhancing the health and well being of not only officers and men of the Corps but also the host
communities.

“In carrying out our statutory mandates, it requires the supports of the host communities for positive results and this is why the NSCDC is concerned about the state of health and wellness of the people.

“As an agency with the roles and responsibility of Disaster mitigation we belief that the free medical outreach organized for the people will go a long way to further cement the existing working relationship of the Corps and the entire community”.

The NSCDC Boss hinted that the Medical outreach would be carried out in various communities as time unfolds he noted that the Corps medical officers alongside the United Healthcare HMOs would be at Laminga Local Government Area of Nasarawa State for the first phase in the year.

NSCDC Takes Medical Outreach to Community in Nasarawa

Health

Korean Film Festival Returns to Nigeria After COVID-19 Break

Published

4 months ago

September 22, 2024

Ochuwa Ibrahim

Korean Film Festival Returns to Nigeria After COVID-19 Break

By: Michael Mike

The Korean Embassy in Nigeria has commenced the Korean Film Festival in Nigeria after it went on break during the CIVID-19 pandemic.

The latest edition is the 12th Edition of the festival and was hosted at the Silverbird Cinema, in Abuja between 19th September to 21st September 2024 with several movies screened.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Korean ambassador to Nigeria, Kim Pankyu, expressed delight with the return of the festival after it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

He said: “I have come to deeply feel that South Korea and Nigeria share a strong cultural affinity, especially in their love for music and dance.

“Due to this cultural affinity, various elements, such as fashion and cuisine, along with music, are resonating in Nigeria.

“Particularly, there has been a significant surge in the spread of dramas and films.”

He added that: “Along with the global hit ‘Squid Game’ in 2021, the most-watched drama series on Netflix Nigeria in 2022 was ‘Alchemy of souls’.

“Thus, I have come to realise the importance of introducing Korean films to Nigeria, one of the world’s top 3 film-producing countries.”

Also speaking at the event, the Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, Mr Obi Asika, said millions of Nigerians had fallen in love with K-pop [Korean music] and K-drama [Korean drama].

He said Nigeria would continue to learn from the Koreans to improve its entertainment industry.

Korean Film Festival Returns to Nigeria After COVID-19 Break

Health

New UNAIDS Report that Debt Crisis Has Left Health Chronically Underfunded in Africa

Published

4 months ago

September 19, 2024

Ochuwa Ibrahim

New UNAIDS Report that Debt Crisis Has Left Health Chronically Underfunded in Africa

By: Michael Mike

Growing public debt is choking sub-Saharan African countries, leaving them with little fiscal room to finance health and critical HIV services, a new report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS).

The report said domestic revenues, debt relief and development aid: Transformative pathways for ending AIDS by 2030 Eastern and Southern Africa/ Western and Central Africa, shows that the debt crisis is putting in jeopardy progress made towards ending AIDS.

It added that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the largest number of people living with HIV, with more than 25.9 million people of the 39.9 million living with HIV globally. The region’s success in having reduced new HIV infections by 56% since 2010 will not be sustained if fiscal space is constrained.

The report, released ahead of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, showed that the combination of growing public debt payments and spending cuts set out in International Monetary Fund agreements in the next three to five years will, if unaddressed, leave countries dangerously under resourced to fund their HIV responses.

The UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “When countries cannot effectively look after the health care needs of their people because of debt payments, global health security is put at risk,” adding that: “Public debt needs to be urgently reduced and domestic resource mobilization strengthened to enable the fiscal space to fully fund the global HIV response and end AIDS.”

The report said debt servicing now exceeds 50% of government revenues in Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, adding that even after debt relief measures, Zambia will still be paying two-thirds of its budget on debt servicing between 2024 and 2026.

It said there has been a noted decline in HIV response spending since 2017 in Western and Central Africa, from 0.3% of GDP in 2017 to just 0.12% in 2022.

It said Western and Central Africa will need to mobilize US$ 4.18 billion to fully fund the HIV response in 2024. This will climb to US$ 7.9 billion by 2030 unless efforts are scaled up today to stop new HIV infections.

While US$ 20.8 billion was available for the HIV response in 2022 in low and middle-income countries through both domestic and international sources, this funding was not enough to sufficiently finance the HIV response. Western and Central Africa for example had a funding shortfall of 32% in 2022.

In 2024 alone, Eastern and Southern Africa will need to mobilize almost US$ 12 billion to fully fund the HIV response. This amount will climb to around US$ 17 billion by 2030 unless new HIV infections are reduced.

It said to enable increased domestic resource mobilization for countries to respond effectively to their pandemics, sub-Saharan African countries will need to strengthen their tax systems, including closing tax exemptions which currently cost countries an average of 2.6% of GDP in lost revenue across the region. Donors need also to scale up financial assistance for health and the HIV response between now and 2030, while creditors should offer debt relief to heavily indebted countries to ease the burden.

Byanyima said: “World leaders cannot let a resource crunch derail global progress to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”

New UNAIDS Report that Debt Crisis Has Left Health Chronically Underfunded in Africa