This year is also the 25th anniversary of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which united entities across the UN system to mobilise countries and communities globally to take action in combatting HIV/AIDS.
“For four decades the programme has provided global leadership, promoted policy consensus, strengthened the capacity of national governments to develop comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategies and of the UN system to monitor implementation,” ECOSOC President Collen Kelapile said.
“UNAIDS has been instrumental in mobilising political commitment and social action to prevent and respond to HIV/AIDS”.
He said the fight against HIV/AIDS serves as a successful example of political leadership and commitment, joint action in the face of a global crises, and the importance of effective multilateralism.
UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima issued a “stark warning” in her virtual message that AIDS remained a pandemic, saying “the red light is flashing and only by moving fast to end the inequalities that drive the pandemic can we overcome it”.
“Without the inequality-fighting approach we need to end AIDS, the world would also struggle to end the COVID-19 pandemic and would remain unprepared for the pandemics of the future”, she warned, which she added “would be profoundly dangerous for us all”.
Byanyima noted that amidst the raging COVID-19 crisis, progress in combatting AIDS is under even greater strain – disrupting HIV prevention and treatment services, schooling, violence prevention programmes and more.
“On our current trajectory, we are not bending the curve fast enough and risk an AIDS pandemic lasting decades”, she cautioned, urging more momentum on member states-agreed concrete actions to address the inequalities that are driving HIV.
