Nigeria accounts for half of new infections in West Africa – UN- The Sun News

The Executive Director of the United Nations UN agency on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS) Michel Sidibe revealed yesterday that Nigeria accounts for about half of all new infections in West Africa.

Sidibe spoke at the presentation of the agency's report for 2017. His words: "Some countries continue to worry about us, like Nigeria." The report says that nearly three out of five HIV-infected people , or 21.7 million worldwide, received antiretroviral therapy in 2017, a new record for access to AIDS medications, according to the UN agency on HIV / AIDS READ ALSO: Nigeria reports 1.3 million HIV / AIDS victims on antiretroviral drugs in the first quarter of 2017: UNAIDS

36.9 million people were living with the virus attacking the immune system in 2017, of which 15.2 Millions were not getting t According to UNAIDS, the medications they need are the weakest since the outbreak of the epidemic.

Despite the progress made in the fight against infections and deaths, the agency lamented the growing number of infections and deaths.

The progress made so far is likely to be halted, if not canceled, if there is less funding and attention from the world, warned the agency. "We are running out of 7 billion dollars (six billion euros) a year to maintain our results and reach our goals for 2020," Mr Sidibé told AFP. UNAIDS has reported wide variations between regions of the world in the fight against the killer virus.

In the Middle East and North Africa, for example, less than one third of HIV-positive people have access to ARVs, only 36% in Eastern Europe. and in Central Asia, and 40% in West and Central Africa. For Western and Central Europe and North America, this figure is 78%, with about 1.7 million out of the 2.2 million people infected with antiretrovirals, according to UNAIDS .

In Eastern and Southern Africa, 53% of people Worldwide, deaths declined by 42% between 2010 and 2017, largely due to the widespread deployment of treatment.
Evaluating progress toward the target, UNAIDS said 1.8 million people became infected with HIV in 2017.

of about 1.9 million in the year previous, and 3.4 million at the height of the epidemic in 1996. Deaths fell from 990,000 to 940,000 over one year, compared with 1.9 million in 2005 and 1.4 million in 2010. [19659008] The number of people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) increased from 19.4 million in 2016 to 21.7 million last year, compared to 611,000 in 2000 and 2.1 million in 2005, according to the report published in Approach to the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. week

This hel The number of people living with the virus has increased from 36.3 million in 2016 to 36.9 million last year.

However, "there has been no reduction in AIDS-related mortality in Eastern Europe and Central Asia since 2010. Sidibe has blamed punitive laws that, instead of Providing drug users with access to clean, uninfected needles forces them to "hide and infect their partners." About 180,000 minors were newly infected with HIV in 2017, and about 110,000 died of AIDS, but more than 50% of those under 15 had no access to treatment. "This is unacceptable," said Sidibe, who warned of creeping apathy and the "complacency" in the fight against AIDS. "We can win, but we have not won yet," he said of the world battle.