From 8 to 10 June 2021, the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS is being held in New York and online. The meeting will discuss the results of activities to reduce the negative consequences of HIV since the previous similar event, which took place 5 years ago. In addition, a new political declaration is expected to be adopted towards further work in this area.
Ahead of the meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a report with recommendations and targets that will enable the world to achieve the goal of ending AIDS. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that, despite intensified efforts and impressive results in the HIV countermeasures in some areas and population groups, the HIV epidemic continues to spread among other categories of people and regions. To change the situation, he formulated 10 points, adherence to which could help countries defeat the AIDS pandemic by 2030. Inequality is the major one, he states.
“The stark contrast of successes in some areas and failures in others confirms that HIV remains a pandemic of inequalities, ” said Antonio Guterres in his report. The global AIDS response community and UNAIDS have integrated inequalities into a new ambitious strategy that includes ambitious new, detailed and personalized goals to reach the most disadvantaged populations first. The upcoming General Assembly High-level Meeting on HIV and AIDS, to be held from 8-10 June 2021, will be a critical opportunity to advance this strategy, which includes new, ambitious global targets for 2025. Meeting these challenges will require urgent transformative action to reduce and eradicate inequalities, as well as increased domestic and international investment in HIV, health, social protection, humanitarian responses and pandemic preparedness and response systems.”
The regional networks of communities in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region issued a statement to the High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on HIV/AIDS about the priorities of the response to HIV/AIDS. They assured their commitment to ensuring that the new Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS is not only designed as an effective guideline but also used to turn words into the reality of saved lives and the well-being of people and communities. They raised general expectations for the new Declaration:
- The Declaration should not only describe the vision, priorities, policies and plans of governments but, above all, reflect the needs of the people and communities most affected by the HIV epidemic;
- The declaration should not only proclaim an overall goal of ending the HIV epidemic, but also set specific and measurable goals and results in protecting the health and social well-being of people and communities most affected by HIV;
- The declaration should include commitments and political and financial support mechanisms for its implementation;
- The Declaration should ensure that best practices and lessons learned by countries and communities over four decades of working to protect human health and well-being from the HIV epidemic are learned and spreaded.
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