UNITED NATIONS, 1 May, 2021 (TON): Efforts to address the inequalities in order to bring the world back on track to end AIDS by 2030, said the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In a report issued on Friday, UN-SG said, there has been intensive action and progress against HIV in some places and population groups, while inaction in other places has allowed HIV epidemics to expand and deaths to mount.

Six years after the UN General Assembly set an ambitious global goal to end AIDS by 2030, momentum is being lost.

The global targets for 2020, which was agreed to in 2016, were missed, he noted.

Guterres said, "The stark contrast of successes in some areas and failures in others confirms that HIV remains a pandemic of inequalities. Getting back on track will require urgent, transformative action to reduce and end inequalities, as well as increased domestic and international investment in HIV, health, social protection, humanitarian responses and pandemic preparedness and control systems."

However, the UN-SG made 10 recommendations that include; reduce and end inequalities that are obstructing progress to end AIDS; prioritize HIV prevention and ensure that 95 percent of people at risk of HIV infection have access to and use effective combination prevention options by 2025; close gaps in HIV testing, treatment and viral suppression; eliminate vertical HIV transmission and end pediatric AIDS; put gender equality and the human rights of women and girls at the forefront of efforts to mitigate the risk and impact of HIV; close the HIV response resource gap and increase annual HIV investments in low- and middle-income countries to 29 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.