Three United Nations agencies have formed a global alliance to prevent new HIV infections and ensure that by 2030 all HIV-positive children can get access to lifesaving treatment.
The UN said while more than three-quarters of all adults living with HIV are receiving some treatment, the number of children doing so stands at only 52 percent.
In response to this “startling disparity,” the UN said the new Global Alliance for Ending AIDS in Children by 2030, comprising UN agencies, civil society groups, governments, and international partners, was announced at the landmark International AIDS Conference, which ended in Canada, on Tuesday.
Regarding the Caribbean, there were an estimated 330,000 people living with HIV last year, and the UN said from 2010 to 2021, AIDS-related deaths in the region declined by 50 percent.
There were 5700 deaths last year, and new HIV infections have decreased by 28 percent since 2010. An estimated 14,000 people contracted HIV in 2021, translating into 270 new HIV infections every week in the Caribbean.
“While the Caribbean has not had the increase in new infections experienced in other regions, the rate of decline is far too slow,” explained Luisa Cabal, UNAIDS Director of the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Support Team.
Addressing the conference, Limpho Nteko from Lesotho shared her journey from a surprise HIV diagnosis to pioneering the women-led mothers2mothers program to combat gestational transmission of HIV.
Pregnant when diagnosed, Nteko highlighted the importance of community leadership in combating HIV.
“To succeed, we need a healthy, informed generation of young people who feel free to talk about HIV and to get the services and support they need to protect themselves and their children from HIV,” she told delegates.
The UN said Netko’s emphasis on community leadership will now be backed by the resources of an international coalition.
The UN said stakeholders in the alliance had identified four pillars of collective action, close the treatment gap among breastfeeding adolescent girls and women living with HIV, optimize the continuity of treatment; prevent and detect new HIV infections among pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women; promote accessible testing, optimized treatment, and comprehensive care for infants, children, and adolescents exposed to and living with HIV; and address gender equality, and the social and structural barriers that hinder access to services.
The UN said the potential success of the alliance rests on its unifying nature.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said, “by bringing together new, improved medicines, new political commitment, and the determined activism of communities, we can be the generation who end AIDS in children. We can win this – but we can only win together.”
Only through collaboration at all levels of society can holistic solutions be created to effectively prevent further HIV transmission, said UNAIDS.
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