Winnie Byanyima the Executive Director of UNAIDS has revealed that a significant drop in aid has triggered massive decline in HIV testing and access to Preventative Medications.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warned today that a significant reduction in international aid is jeopardizing the fight against the disease.
Byanyima asserted that the fight against the virus that causes AIDS is at risk due to the sudden cuts in international aid.
These reductions have become a general trend in several developed countries since the middle of this decade.
The most drastic decisions in this regard have been made in the United States, but other countries such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have also significantly reduced their international aid, placing many non-governmental organizations in a difficult position and negatively impacting the fight against diseases like AIDS, which primarily affect the world’s poorest regions.
A new report by the UN HIV/AIDS Programme details the tangible and measurable effects of this phenomenon.
Foremost among these is a 38 percent decline in the number of people taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a crucial preventative treatment in combating the virus, across some 60 countries studied by the organization.
In the countries most affected by HIV, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, participation in one of the most important testing programs fell by 22 percent.
Funding for condom distribution, a key tool in combating the spread of HIV, has plummeted by 90 percent, according to the report, while funding for prevention programs has dropped by 80 percent.
The UN program estimates that approximately 570,000 people died from AIDS last year, and about 1.2 million new infections were recorded.
These figures reflect the continued downward trend since 2010, but the program clarified that the impact of reduced aid has not yet been fully realized, and that “detecting new infections is not immediate; it takes years,” according to Byanyima.