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More money, more prevention and less repression for the at-risk population: these messages will be repeated today in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) at the International AIDS Conference for avoid a rebound of this epidemic which caused 35 million deaths during the last year.
This big event, which takes place every two years, hosts celebrities such as Prince Enrique, actress Charlize Theron or singer Elton John, as well as 15,000 experts and activists, Monday and Friday.
Currently 36.9 million people live with the HIV virus, hoping that the virus will not worsen. Nearly three out of five are on antiretroviral therapy to avoid it, the highest ratio ever achieved.
The number of infections is reduced and, for the first time since the beginning of the century, total annual deaths were less than one million in 2016 (990,000) and again in 2017 (940,000 ).
But paradoxically, these advances imply a relaxation of prevention which, combined with a reduction in international funding, raises fears of a rebound in the epidemic.
"The last time I spoke here in 1992, I could not imagine that I would come back 26 years later, alive and healthy," activist David Barr Sunday said. American HIV positive. at a symposium organized on the eve of the Conference.
But this success is "incredibly fragile," he warns, fearing a return to "the horror of 1992", when there was a wave of infections and deaths .
One of the main concerns is the issue of funding.
"We will have problems if we do not have more money" said Sunday the American researcher Mark Dybul, former director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS.
The worst case scenario, according to him, would be that the lack of funding adds to an explosion of new infections because of the growing demography in some of the most affected countries, particularly in Africa.
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"Mix these two elements and you will have a great crisis," warns fearing that "the world will lose control of the epidemic".
Budget cuts
Last year 20,600 million euros were spent on AIDS programs in low- and middle-income countries who financed 56% of the programs, according to UNAIDS.
But the UN agency for the fight against AIDS estimates that seven billion dollars a year are missing for this disease to cease to be a threat to global public health by 2030.
The community of researchers and badociations is particularly concerned that US contributions will be reduced.
Since Donald Trump was elected president, the United States, historically the leading contributor to the fight against AIDS, warned of budget cuts that, for the time being, are not are not materialized.
And the widespread improvement in the world of the situation of the epidemic hides the strong existing disparities.
Infections are on the rise in about fifty countries, either because of a lack of prevention or because of repressive legislation against at-risk populations, such as homobaduals or drug addicts.
That is why the badociations put pressure on the political decision-makers so that they stop repressing the drug addiction and privilege the programs of reduction of the risks, by providing for example sterile syringes or consumer rooms.
"Just Say No to the War on Drugs", calls for coalition Coalition PLUS to join forces in a campaign that changes a famous American anti-drug slogan of the Regan era, in the 1980s, who said "Say no" ("Say no" to drugs).
The war on drugs is "the best ally of the epidemics of HIV and viral hepatitis" and "led to a real health catastrophe," denounces Coalition PLUS.
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