The Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) has said that fully financing the HIV response in Africa will produce substantial health, social and economic gains for the continent.
UNAIDS said this in a report entitled “A Triple Dividend: The health, Social and Economic Gains From Financing the HIV Response on Africa” published on Wednesday.
The report, based on research by the Economist Impact partnership across 13 African countries, estimates that millions of lives will also be saved if funding is forthcoming.
According to UNAIDS, young women, children and other vulnerable populations will pay the highest price as pre-existing health and socio-economic inequalities grow.
Global 2025 targets include reducing new HIV infections to under 370,000 (from 1.5 million in 2021), reducing HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women to less than 50,000, and reducing the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses to less than 250,000 compared with 650,000 in 2021.
