UNITED NATIONS – Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading U.S. infectious disease expert, said Tuesday the COVID-19 pandemic had diverted scientific and financial resources from fighting AIDS and seriously hampered global efforts to meet the UN’s goal of ending AIDS by 2030 .
Fauci told the UN General Assembly that fighting COVID-19 has also cut supply chains and increased the risk for people living with HIV, the causative agent of AIDS, of contracting another deadly virus.
“To meet these challenges, we need to intensify our joint research efforts and free up supply chains through investment and regulatory action,” he said. “We also need to ensure that people living with HIV in all countries have early access to effective COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics while their supplies of anti-HIV drugs are maintained.”
The director of the National Allergy and Infectious Disease Institute and senior medical advisor to US President Joe Biden spoke at the World AIDS Day commemoration on Wednesday. The 40th anniversary of the first report to bring AIDS to the public’s attention was June 5th.
Fauci said he was “deeply engaged” in the response to the HIV / AIDS and COVID-19 pandemic, and “they have sparked responses we can all be proud of, including remarkable scientific advances, global collaboration, and widespread use Compassion, especially in the distribution of life-saving AIDS drugs. “
“On the other hand,” he said, “they also show that, as a global society, we are still faced with long-standing inequalities in access to health care and very real health communication challenges, coupled in some countries with dwindling trust in core institutions have to fight. “.”
Fauci said in a recorded speech that much of what scientists and public health experts have learned from their long investments in HIV / AIDS research “has been successfully applied to the COVID-19 pandemic.” He pointed to drug design and the potential impact on survival of monoclonal antibodies that can fight infections.
“Key discoveries stimulated by COVID-19 can also help us make progress in the fight against HIV / AIDS,” he said, highlighting messenger RNA vaccines and the pool of substances found in vaccines.
MRNA vaccines work by using a genetic code from the coronavirus spike protein to train the immune system to produce a response. Both the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are based on mRNA.
Fauci said COVID-19 has also shown how quickly scientists and public health officials can respond to a pandemic when significant and sustained financial investments are made, “and perhaps most importantly, when governments and the private sector work together” and incentives for production Offer.
Now, he said, the challenge facing scientists, funders and research supporters is “to apply these findings in the fight against HIV / AIDS”.
UNAIDS, the UN agency leading global efforts to end the AIDS pandemic, released a report on Monday that new infections worldwide are not declining fast enough to end the pandemic of 1.5 million new HIV -Infections in 2020, stop 7.7 million AIDS-related deaths in the next 10 years if leaders don’t address inequalities in drug and treatment availability.
COVID-19 is also undercutting the AIDS response in many places, UNAIDS said, pointing to a decline in HIV testing and fewer people with HIV who would start treatment in 40 out of 50 countries studied in 2020. The UN agency said HIV prevention services were also affected.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima told the General Assembly on Tuesday that “the progress on AIDS that had gotten out of the way before COVID is now under strain as the COVID crisis rages on, HIV prevention and treatment services disturbs, disrupts school lessons, disruptions cause violence prevention programs and much more. “
In June, the General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a statement calling for urgent action to end AIDS by 2030. It commits the Assembly’s 193 member states to implement the 18-page document, including reducing annual new HIV infections to below 370,000 and annual AIDS-related deaths to below 250,000 by 2025. It also calls for progress in eradicating all forms of stigma and HIV-related discrimination and urgent efforts for an HIV vaccine and cure for AIDS.
Byanyima called the plan “exciting” but warned in a recorded speech that “we can only overcome it if we act quickly to end the inequalities that are fueling the pandemic”.
