Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reaction to 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 life-saving HIV treatment from the last UN High Level Meeting on HIV in 2011, in order to meet the target of 15 million people on treatment by 2015. The number of people on treatment will again need to double to reach the new goals of ‘90/90/90,’* and 30 million people on HIV treatment by 2020. We also need to see much more done in countries where still so few people in need of HIV treatment are receiving it, like in the West and Central Africa regions, where only a quarter of people in need have access.”
Governments must re-commit to their shared global responsibility to cover the costs for global HIV treatment, including by making strong pledges at this year’s Global Fund replenishment conference.
For countries such as Malawi and Mozambique, that rank as having some of the lowest incomes in the world, significant increases of domestic funding for HIV are not realistic, and pressure can result in costs being passed on to people living with HIV. Treatment must not only be scaled-up to every person living with HIV, but remain free to everyone who needs it.”
- Dr Amaury Gregoire, MSF Head of Mission for Malawi and Mozambique
*The 90/90/90 goals refer to the UNAIDS treatment target that by 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status; that by 2020, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy; and that by 2020, 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have ‘undetectable’ levels of virus in their blood (viral suppression).