World AIDS day 2023!

World can end AIDS, with communities leading the way...

Every year on December 1 World AIDS Day is celebrated to spread awareness about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) to reiterate the fact that the world can successfully overcome the deadly disease caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).  

This year, UNAIDS, the United Nations body advocating for comprehensive and coordinated global action on AIDS, has given the theme 'Let Communities Lead'. The UN body has explained the reason behind choosing this year's theme on a special web page.

The world can end AIDS, with communities leading the way. Organizations of communities living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV are the frontline of progress in the HIV response. Communities connect people with person-centered public health services, build trust, innovate, monitor implementation of policies and services, and hold providers accountable," said UNAIDS.

It then highlighted how funding shortages, policy and regulatory hurdles, capacity constraints and crackdowns on civil society are obstructing the progress of HIV prevention and treatment services.

World AIDS Day 2023 seeks to get full potential of community leadership to enable the end of AIDS.

UNAIDS also suggested a three-point solution to empower the communities that can then lead the fight against AIDS. These include giving communities leadership roles, providing them proper funding and enabling a regulatory environment to facilitate communities' role in provision of HIV services

On Tuesday, UNAIDS released its annual World AIDS Day report in which it underlined that it is still possible to reach the "end of AIDS" by 2030 if communities and services on the ground are given the means.

"The message of this report is one of active hope.  Currently the world is not on track to end AIDS as a public health threat, it can get on track," UNAIDS said in the report.

There are 39 million people all over the world living with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS. Of them, 20.8 million are in eastern and southern Africa and 6.5 million are in Asia and the Pacific.