HIV/AIDS: 'The progress achieved should not be confused with success' - Presser | United Nations

Press Conference by Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. The fifth meeting since the first UN General Assembly special session on a health crisis 25 years ago opened with the president of the General Assembly and the Deputy Secretary-General leading the session. Byanyima told delegations the world made a promise 25 years ago to stop AIDS with all people in all countries getting the treatment and prevention they needed, with funds mobilized to enable every country to fight the disease, and communities on the ground leading and delivering services for their people. That promise has been kept for 25 years, she said, but the progress should not be mistaken for success: nine million people remain off treatment, and UNAIDS data show 1.2 million people were newly infected last year. The promise to end AIDS, she said, “hasn’t been realized.” Therefore, Byanyima said, she had urged countries to agree on “an ambitious political declaration” expected to be signed Tuesday. She nonetheless pointed to gains, noting 32.1 million of the 40 million people living with HIV are now on treatment, calling it “tremendous progress.” The UNAIDS chief called on member states to sustain international financing as countries mobilize their own domestic resources, noting 52 countries increased domestic financing for the HIV response last year, alongside regional efforts to achieve “health sovereignty.” She closed by stressing the importance of universal access to medicines, saying “Innovations without access are not innovations. They are an injustice.”


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