UNGA on Prevention of HIV/AIDS
Source : The Hindu
GS II : Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
Why in News ?
The latest UNAIDS report, reveals that more than half of all People Living with HIV (PLHIV) now have access to HIV treatment. For the first time since the global onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the scales have tipped in favour of patients.
- As of last year, 19.5 million of the 36.7 million HIV+ patients had access to treatment.
- Deaths caused by AIDS have fallen from 1.9 million in 2005 to 1 million in 2016.
Condition in India
- The majority of the cases nearly 95 per cent of the cases in 2016 were concentrated in just 10 countries, India being one of them.
- India has 2.1 million people living with HIV, with 80,000 new infections annually, as of 2016.
- In 2005, the annual incidence was 1,50,000 people.
- India is the country where most new HIV infections are occurring in the Asia-Pacific region.
- While India has made big progress with new infections dropping significantly, the emergence of HIV in some locations that were earlier considered ‘not high-burden’ areas is a cause for concern.,
Why the condition of India is worsening ?
While the world seems to be on track to reach the global target of 30 million people on treatment by 2020 the report states
- Access to medicines remains a major barrier and India plays a special role.
- Insufficient availability and poor affordability of essential medicines.
Progress towards the 90–90–90 target
The idea behind the 90-90-90 target is to diagnose 90% of people who are HIV positive; get 90% of the diagnosed HIV+ people on antiretroviral treatment, and 90% of those on antiretrovirals should be virally suppressed.
This is attained when an HIV+ patient’s viral load reaches an undetectable level, curbing transmission.
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