Diseases & conditions

UN: AIDS Response 'Under Threat' Due to Stigmas

NOV 28 2023·Updated NOV 29 2023

Story

Image credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images (Dec. 1, 2009)

The Facts

The United Nations AIDS program, UNAIDS, says that the global response to the disease is "under threat" due to a backlash against lifestyles that stigmatize groups most at risk of contracting the HIV infection.
Reuters
Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said that countries with laws targeting the LGBTQ community, sex work, and drug use are seeing a rise or plateau in new infections.
US News & World Report
Byanyima told Reuters that such laws are a "pushback" against human rights and that they undermine the UN’s work to fight AIDS. UNAIDS hopes to end AIDS as a public threat by 2030, which Byanyima said was still achievable.
NBC
The UN first set 2030 as the target of ending AIDS as a public threat in 2015. 39M people around the world live with HIV — the virus that causes AIDS. 20.8M of those people live in eastern and southern Africa while 6.5M reside in Asia and the Pacific.
The New Indian Express
30M people receive treatment for HIV, but 630K people died from the disease in 2022.
NBC
WHO Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported 110,486 HIV diagnoses in 2022, with a total of 2.4M cases, a 4.2% increase. They also advocate more testing and ending stigmas about communities with high rates of the virus.
XINHUA

Sources Split

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RIGHT

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The Spin

Left narrative

The erosion of human rights in many countries is not only a significant moral concern, but it also undermines the progress made toward ending AIDS as a public health threat. Countries are passing inhumane laws against the LGBTQ community, further stigmatizing a marginalized group that's at greater risk of contracting HIV. Countries should focus on helping communities by fighting AIDS instead of stigmatizing vulnerable groups.

GLAAD

Right narrative

Political correctness poses a far greater threat to public health and ending diseases like AIDS than these laws do. Groups like the UN and other so-called "public health" organizations promulgate this worldview but it's not correct. Promoting a healthy and moral society will go a long way toward ending AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

National Review