Published two days before World AIDS Day, UNAIDS recalls last year that it proposed new goals for 2025, including access to appropriate prevention options (condoms, drugs, etc.) for 95% of people with risk and marginalized.
This is in order to "get on the right track to achieve the global goal of ending AIDS by 2030".
The "agreed actions are not being taken at the speed and scale required," according to the report.
"And the curves of HIV infections are not retreating fast enough."
However, "there is no time to waste", especially since healthcare systems around the world have been and still are severely tested by the coronavirus epidemic.
The pace of HIV testing has declined almost uniformly around the world, due to this Covid-19 pandemic, the UN adds.
In addition, inequalities persist.
For example, "in sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and women are still far more numerous than men and boys among those who contract the infection", notes the UN, stressing that "poverty and lack of education are other formidable obstacles to health services ".
"The AIDS pandemic could kill millions of people in the years to come if we do not act urgently," warns the UN.
UNAIDS puts the number of AIDS-related deaths at 7.7 million between 2021 and 2030 if prevention and treatment coverage remained at 2019 levels.
On the other hand, if the global AIDS strategy were implemented and the 2025 goals achieved, UNAIDS estimates that at least 4.6 million of these lives can be saved over the decade.
© 2021 AFP