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With the right intervention at the right time HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria can be prevented and treated, according to a new joint report by UNAIDS, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Many of the interventions needed were not expensive and the prices of others were rapidly falling, the UN agencies reported. The main challenge was to make them available on a global scale.
According to the report, "Coordinates 2002", a worldwide consensus had emerged to respond to the three diseases. "Targets have been set. Monitoring systems are being strengthened to identify progress and warn of failures," it said.
"The scale of devastation caused by HIV/AIDS is unmatched," Peter Piot Executive Director of UNAIDS, said in a press release. "But I believe even the world’s poorest countries are on the brink of making substantial progress with quality treatment and effective prevention programmes - and it is up to the international community to redouble our support for their efforts."
With 15 percent of all deaths of HIV-infected people due to TB and with HIV causing a steep rise in TB cases in Africa over the past decade, the two diseases formed a lethal combination, the report said.
Youth in developing countries still had far too little knowledge about HIV/AIDS and how it is transmitted. At least 30 percent of young people in 22 surveyed countries had never heard of AIDS and how it is transmitted. Up to 87 percent of 15-19 year olds did not believe they were at risk, it said.
Less than five percent of the people who needed treatment for HIV/AIDS in the developing world had access to the medicines they needed, the report added.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions