Ending the disease’s spread by 2030 faces “enormous” challenges.
The world committed to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 with goals adopted this year by the United Nations. But is that realistic, or even possible?
There are a lot of reasons for optimism on this World AIDS Day. The number of new infections has dropped 35 percent since 2000, according to the World Health Organization. HIV-linked deaths, which peaked in 2004, have dropped 40 percent since. And wider access to antiretroviral medicines is extending lives, suppressing the virus, and preventing its spread.
The UN agreement isn’t talking about eradicating the virus entirely in 15 years. Citing mathematical models that show what’s possible, the goal is to stop widespread transmission and eliminate it as a public health threat.
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“I don’t want to minimize the fact that doing it is going to be challenging,” says Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, who pioneered the idea of ”treatment as prevention.”
“There is now consensus that it can be done, it should be done, it must be done,” he says.