Social Justice
Round-table of UNAIDS
- 22 Jan 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
Recently, the high-level roundtable of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) was held at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
- Its theme was, “Access for all: Leveraging Innovations, Investments and Partnerships for Health”.
- It laid emphasis on accessibility of health to all with innovative technologies and solutions and also on bridging economic inequalities.
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
- It is leading the global effort to end Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. It was started in 1996.
- UNAIDS has a vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths, and a principle of leaving no one behind.
- The UN Political declaration on ending AIDS was adopted in 2016 which seeks to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
- It is a set of symptoms or syndrome caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) but it is not necessary that a person infected with HIV will definitely develop AIDS.
- A person infected with HIV is likely to develop symptoms of AIDS over a period of time when his/her immune system is too weak to fight HIV infection.
- This is the last stage of HIV when the infection is very advanced and if left untreated will lead to death.
- A person with HIV whose CD4 (a type of White Blood Cell called T cells) count falls below 200 per cubic millimetre is diagnosed with AIDS.
- The risk of HIV progressing to AIDS varies widely between individuals and depends on many factors including:
- The age of the individual
- The body’s ability to defend against HIV
- Access to high quality sanitary healthcare
- Presence of other infections
- Individual’s genetic resistance to certain strains of HIV
- Drug-Resistant strains of HIV
- Prevention includes safe sex, testing and counselling for HIV, voluntary medical male circumcision among other things.
