Post Date July, 23 2023
On the eve of World AIDS Day on December 1, Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of the United Nations Programme on AIDS, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that in the past 10 years, the world's AIDS epidemic momentum has been curbed, and the number of new AIDS infections and AIDS deaths in the world have decreased significantly.
Sidibe said that in the past 10 years, the number of newly infected cases of AIDS virus in the world has decreased by about 20%. In the past five years, the number of AIDS deaths has also decreased by about 20%.
In particular, he pointed out that in recent years African countries have achieved results in the fight against AIDS. At present, more than two-thirds of the world's HIV carriers are in Africa. However, from 2001 to 2009, the HIV infection rate in 22 sub Saharan African countries declined to a certain extent, and the number of newly infected HIV people in Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and other countries with the most widespread AIDS epidemic in the world decreased by more than a quarter.
He said that 1.8 million people died of AIDS in the world in 2009. The United Nations Programme on AIDS hopes to work with the World Health Organization and other institutions to achieve the goal of halving the number of people dying of AIDS every year in the world at the current level by 2015, and to control the number of AIDS deaths within 900000. In 2009, 370000 infants and young children infected with HIV were added to the world. It is hoped that by 2015, this number will be zero.
Sidibe pointed out that at present, 10 million people living with AIDS virus in the world cannot receive treatment, and governments of all countries called on not to use the economic crisis as a reason to reduce the funding for AIDS prevention and management, so as to prevent AIDS patients from losing hope because they cannot receive drugs and treatment.
Sidibe particularly praised China, South Africa and other emerging countries to increase investment in AIDS prevention and the positive measures of mother to child transmission of AIDS.
According to the latest annual report on AIDS in the world released by the United Nations AIDS Programme, 2.6 million people in the world were infected with AIDS in 2009, a decrease of about 19% from the peak of 3.1 million people in 2001. By the end of 2009, the total number of people infected with AIDS in the world was 33.3 million, 100000 fewer than the previous year.
In order to raise people's awareness of AIDS, the World Health Organization designated December 1 every year as World AIDS Day in 1988, and called on all countries and international organizations to hold relevant activities on this day to promote and popularize the common sense of AIDS prevention.
