Sharonann Lynch, HIV policy advisor at Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Access Campaign, made the following statement on the release of the United Nations Secretary General report on HIV/AIDS ahead of the June UN High Level Meeting on HIV—“Implementation of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the Political Declarations on HIV and AIDS: On the Fast-Track to End the AIDS epidemic.”
“We saw a doubling of the number of people on lifesaving HIV treatment over the last five years in order to exceed the global commitment of reaching 15 million people with treatment by 2015. The number of people on treatment will need to double again in the next five years to reach the new goal of 30 million people on HIV treatment by 2020. Every day, we need to see more people starting HIV treatment than the day before if the world wants to get ahead of the wave with this epidemic.
We also need to see much more done in countries where still so few people who need HIV treatment are receiving it, like in the West and Central Africa regions, where only a quarter of people in need are on treatment.
Governments must recommit to their shared global responsibility to cover the costs for HIV treatment to achieve the 90/90/90 targets*, including making strong pledges at this year’s Global Fund replenishment conference.”
*The 90/90/90 goals refer to the UNAIDS treatment target that by 2020, 90 percent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90 percent of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have ”undetectable” levels of virus in their blood (viral suppression).