“In 2023, there have never been so few people contracting HIV since the end of the 1980s,” the height of the AIDS epidemic, summarized Tuesday UNAIDS, in charge of the disease within the United Nations, in its annual report. Even if this decline is still considered far too slow, according to the agency.
Between one million and 1.7 million people will be infected with HIV in 2023. It is this virus which, at the last stage of infection, causes AIDS, when the patient's life is threatened by multiple opportunistic diseases against which his body no longer knows how to defend itself.
The goal is to eradicate the epidemic by 2030
Deaths from AIDS – a little over 600,000 according to the agency's estimates – are also at their lowest level since their peak, around twenty years ago. Despite this favorable trend, the agency, which has set itself the objective of virtually eradicating the epidemic by 2030, considers this progress to be far too slow. Around the world, around ten million infected patients do not have antiretroviral treatment, a therapy whose deployment has allowed countless people to live with the disease.
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And, if the more recent arrival of preventive treatments – known as PrEP – has further accelerated progress against the disease, their deployment “remains very slow” where infections progress the fastest, regrets the agency. “Only 15% of people who need it will receive PrEP in 2023,” estimates UNAIDS, pointing in particular to the fact that anti-LGBT legislation, such as in Uganda, discourages people at risk from seeking these treatments.
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