On World AIDS Day 2024, WHO’s Regional Director, Saima Wazed, emphasizes the critical need to embrace a rights-based approach in combating HIV/AIDS. Under the theme “Take the Rights Path: My Health, My Right!”, WHO urges global communities and leaders to address disparities hindering the goal of ending AIDS by 2030. This requires dismantling stigma and discrimination, empowering key populations, and ensuring equal access to healthcare services.
Currently, 39.9 million individuals live with HIV globally, with 1.3 million new infections in 2023, surpassing targets. In the WHO South-East Asia Region, 3.9 million are HIV-positive. Although national efforts have improved HIV awareness and treatment access, challenges remain, notably among marginalized groups including men who have sex with men, sex workers, and those who inject drugs. Rates among young people, aged 15-24, are troubling, partly due to insufficient sexual education and pervasive stigma.
Furthermore, WHO highlights the plight of 80,000 children in the South-East Asia Region living with HIV due to vertical transmission. The organization’s ‘triple elimination’ initiative targets eradicating vertical transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B, with countries like Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Thailand showing success.
Recent commitments such as the Ministerial Declaration on Adolescent-Responsive Health Systems underscore the importance of youth involvement in healthcare policymaking. Innovations like mobile health apps, telemedicine, and new biomedical tools present opportunities to reach underserved communities, provided they are accessible and affordable.
Achieving WHO’s ’95-95-95′ goals is crucial: diagnosing 95% of HIV cases, ensuring sustained treatment for 95% of those diagnosed, and achieving viral suppression in 95% receiving treatment. Collaboration among governments, stakeholders, and communities is essential to fulfill the universal right to health and empower individuals to claim a future where HIV/AIDS is no longer a barrier to living a full life.
Original Story https://www.who.int/southeastasia/news/detail/01-12-2024-world-aids-day
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