MUNICH, GERMANY – As the AIDS 2024, or the 25th International AIDS Conference, is opened, HIV is once again given the spotlight, though – yet again – so are the failures in HIV-related efforts that actually worsen the still-continuing fight against HIV.
Speaking in a panel prior to the opening of IAC, UNAIDS head Winnie Byanyima stated that sustainability continues to be challenging.
“When people talk abut sustainability, people ask: ‘Will the money be there?’ And we’re all scared… the money is shrinking. I can tell you there is a huge gap between what is needed and what is available,” she said, adding that this raises the question of how countries can protect their people even when money is not there.
But programming is also an issue, said Byanyima, particularly in countries with high incidences of HIV infections because efforts related to HIV there are “paid for externally.” “If, as we see the financing decreasing, these countries will have to increase (funding),” sh said, adding that they should therefore better HIV programming on their own/sans reliance on external funding, except they don’t because it’s still not affordable for these countries.
Byanyima similarly lamented the lack of access to HIV technology of many countries. This is because if countries will be expected to spend their own money from their people’s taxes, then they need to be able to afford what to buy. “It will not be possible for them to raise money to buy from abroad,” she said. “They need to produce the medicines in their countries, keep their jobs in their countries, paid with the taxes of their people for prevention and treatment. So the question of transfer of technology… is central in sustainability.”
Everything is, obviously, dependent on political will in various countries. “It’s about governments recognizing that this is about rights of all people,” she said, adding that it’s also “being on the right side of this, politically.”
@outragemag #AIDS 2024 is supposed to highlight #HIV developments, but also highlights issues affecting service delivery – from #profiteering to fake #advocacy and so on
In informal conversations particularly from IAC participants from resource-deprived locations, many of them only able to attend because of scholarships and even if they are still not given platforms to speak during the gathering, grassroots HIV workers also noted other issues, including:
- West-centric scientific advances, e.g. scientific studies are mostly western and so do not necessarily reflect contexts of people of color;
- Commercialization of HIV struggle; and
- Proliferation of well-funded profiteers in HIV advocacy, with many in it only to earn from it and not to help (these same profiteers are enabled by funders themselves).
AIDS 2023 is already the 25th iteration of the IAC, and yet challenges continue to be noted, stressing how HIV continues to be a global concern, which is worsening in some contexts.
