The world is losing the battle against AIDS on account of ongoing discrimination around preventative medicines, testing and coverings, a global conference has been warned.
While there was progress in tackling the disease, the newest report from the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) shows that up to now two years there was a “frightening” setback in prevention, treatment and funding for the AIDS response.
In 2021, 650,000 people died of AIDS-related causes worldwide and 1.5 million people became infected with HIV – well above global targets to limit annual HIV infections to 370,000 by 2025.
Mental property rights for pharmaceuticals dominated discussions on the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022), which took place last week in Montreal, Canada.
The conference heard that HIV infection rates are growing amongst at-risk communities, including low-income countries in Africa and deprived communities in urban areas, while a young woman acquires HIV every two minutes and one person dies of an AIDS-related illness every minute.
Cost and access
Inequalities perpetuate pandemics and a recent approach is required to finish AIDS, leaders told the conference.
In the USA we’ve the perfect research facilities… but we made a critical mistake: we allowed the drug corporations to hoard their mental property, not share it with those in the remainder of the world. That has created enormous global inequities.”
Joseph Stiglitz, Economist, Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate
Stiglitz was amongst a bunch of scientists, political and civil leaders who signed a letter calling on the pharmaceutical company ViiV Healthcare – which developed the HIV prevention drug cabotegravir (CAB-LA) – to lower its prices.
One of the successful AIDS prevention strategies, PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), consists of a day by day pill to diminish the probabilities of acquiring HIV. PrEP is really helpful for groups at higher risk of acquiring HIV, resembling men who’ve sex with men, transgender women, and sex staff.
The World Health Organization says 940,000 people across 83 countries received oral PrEP “not less than once” in 2020. Nevertheless, PrEP stays unavailable in lots of countries where the burden of HIV is highest. Where it is on the market, it may be prohibitively expensive.
“Roughly 70 per cent of those that have access to PrEP are white, gay, middle-class men – not less than in Rio de Janeiro,” Veriano Terto, vp of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association, told SciDev.Net.
“Men who’ve sex with men, [people] who’re black, poor and the trans population – which is heavily impacted by HIV – lack access to each information and services where PrEP is provided in Brazil,” he added.
Stigma persists
Ending stigma and discrimination can be key to winning the battle against AIDS, the conference heard, particularly when the world is facing recent diseases resembling monkeypox. UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima said that inequality and discrimination weren’t inevitable.
“Inequalities in access to services increase HIV/AIDS risks but when governments redistribute resources … to get health technologies to poor and marginalized people … you see recent infections dropping,” Byanyima said.
She said that in COVID-19 restrictions, Thailand prolonged PrEP prescriptions from three to 6 months, offered distant consultations to attenuate clinic visits, and used delivery services to distribute medication and collect self-samples.
“HIV prevalence amongst men [in Thailand] has been falling as an alternative of rising, because it is in other parts of Asia, because they did reduce the inequality there,” Byanyima told the conference.
The conference, which took place from 29 July to 2 August, gathered greater than 9,500 attendees in person and one other 2,000 who attended virtually.
The host government, Canada, was heavily criticized for failing to issue visas to “lots of” of delegates from low- and middle-income countries. Activist groups interrupted some sessions, shouting: “Nothing about us without us.”