Every minute someone in the world dies from AIDS.

Almost ten million people living with HIV do not have access to life-saving medicines.

Every second child who has been infected with the virus has to do without therapy.

The latest data from the AIDS organization of the United Nations (UN-AIDS) are more than sobering.

Peter Philipp Schmitt

Editor in the department "Germany and the World".

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According to this, the world community is in danger of gambling away the successes in the fight against HIV and AIDS that it has laboriously fought for over the years.

The main reasons are "the numerous and overlapping crises that have shaken the world over the past two years," according to the report "In Danger" (In Danger), which was published two days before the start of the world AIDS conference in Montreal on Wednesday evening.

Last year, 1.5 million people around the world were infected, a good million more than the members of the United Nations had set for 2021.

About 650,000 people died from the immunodeficiency disease, although life-saving and life-prolonging drugs have long been available that can also prevent the virus from being passed on.

Young women and adolescent girls in East and South Africa were particularly affected by HIV.

Above all, they suffered from the corona-related school closures, which also meant that they no longer had access to educational programs and health care.

At the same time, the number of pregnancies among young people increased at an above-average rate, as did sexual violence against girls and women.

Adolescent girls in southern Africa are three times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys of the same age.

Figures in Asia are 'alarming'

But also in Asia and the Pacific region, the most populous regions in the world, HIV infection rates are rising again for the first time in ten years.

UN-AIDS calls the figures there “alarming”.

The main victims are minorities within society, who are persecuted by law, discriminated against and expelled in many countries.

For example, men who have sex with men are 28 times more likely to contract HIV than straight men;

people who inject drugs are 35 times more at risk, prostitutes 30 times more, and trans women 14 times more risk than non-minority people of the same sex and age.

The numbers also reflected a lack of political will, says UN AIDS director-general Winnie Byanyima.

“Do we even want to enable our girls to be able to protect themselves from HIV?

Do we want children to stop dying of AIDS?

Is protecting life more important to us than criminalizing minorities?

If that's the case, then we have to fight AIDS again. If the course of the past two years continues, the infection rate in 2025 would still be 1.2 million and not 370,000, as targeted by the United Nations .

The goal of fighting HIV and AIDS so successfully by 2030 that there are no more new cases in the world can still be achieved, according to UN AIDS information.

But only if the rich countries in particular continue to get involved.

Recently, however, they had even reduced their help and support for the relevant programs.

In 2021, for example, a good six percent less funds were available for the fight against HIV and AIDS than in 2010. By 2025, at least eight billion euros will be missing to respond appropriately to the infectious disease.

"We can draw a line under AIDS by 2030," says Winnie Byanyima.

"But this requires one thing above all: courage."