TWN Info Service on Health Issues (Aug18/07)
13 August 2018
Third World Network

Dangerous complacency towards HIV pandemic risks resurgence

Dear friends and colleagues,

A dangerous complacency in the response to the global HIV pandemic is likely to see a resurgence of the disease in the coming years.

The warning was given in a report by The Lancet, which had convened an international commission of global experts to assess the future of the HIV response.

In recent years HIV funding has stalled and this was endangering efforts to control the illness. From 2013 to 2016, international HIV aid was reduced by some 20 percent from almost US$10 billion to US$8.1 billion.

‘Although the number of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have markedly decreased … little progress has been made in reducing new infections in the past decade,’ said the commission.

Unless further investments are made to quickly expand HIV prevention and treatment programmes, the HIV epidemic is likely to rebound and grow far more serious in the coming years, especially when the world’s largest-ever cohort of young people age into adolescence and young adulthood, the commission warned.

To realise the vision of sustainable health for all, the commission recommends the following:

• The world must take immediate steps to rejuvenate the HIV response and follow through on its HIV-related commitments.
• HIV to be integrated within primary care and the broader global health agenda, with integration geared to national and subnational needs of the populations in greatest need of HIV services.
• The HIV response must make common cause with the global health field to achieve sustainable health for all.

The 47-page Lancet report published online 19 July 2018 can be downloaded from here.

With best wishes,
Third World Network