NEW DELHI: India has seen reductions in HIV infections compared to the rising trend in Asia and the Pacific, said a new report by UNAIDS.
The campaign against HIV, however, has been hit hard globally in the last two years by the Covid pandemic and other global crises because of resource crunch, said the report In Danger, launched ahead of the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada.
It said that India - which is among 30 tuberculosis-HIV high-burden nations - is among the eight countries which saw a decline in tuberculosis-related deaths among people living with HIV.
India also figured among the two countries which saw some of the most significant reductions in HIV infections even amidst Covid-19 and other crises, said the report released Wednesday night.
However, the report said that India saw an 8 percent decline in providing TB preventive therapy to people living with HIV in 2019 and 2020.
The two other countries were South Africa and the United Republic of Tanzania, which saw treatment fall by 30 per cent.
“These data show the global AIDS response in severe danger. If we are not making rapid progress, we are losing ground as the pandemic thrives amidst COVID-19, mass displacement, and other crises. Let us remember the millions of preventable deaths we are trying to stop,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima.
Declining trend in India
India has seen reductions in HIV infections compared to the rising trend in Asia and the Pacific, says a new UNAIDS report.
India — which is among 30 tuberculosis-HIV high-burden nations — is among the 8 countries which saw a decline in deaths down with these diseases.
India also figured among the two countries which saw some of the most significant reductions in HIV infections even amidst Covid-19 with HIV.
Globally the number of new infections dropped only 3.6 per cent between 2020 and 2021, the smallest annual decline in new HIV infections since 2016.
The AIDS pandemic took a life every minute, on average, in 2021, with 650000 AIDS deaths despite effective HIV treatment and tools to prevent, detect, and treat opportunistic infections.