The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN AIDS program said on Wednesday that they would not reach their heavily promoted "3 by 5" goal of treating 3 million HIV-infected poor people by the end of the year.
Officials of several health agencies fighting AIDS blamed problems in the drug supply chain and shortages of health workers.
At the same time, they expressed hope that the number of people dying of the disease annually could stop growing by next year.
About 1 million people in poor countries are receiving antiretroviral drugs, said Dr. Kim Jim-yong, director of the WHO's AIDS department, meaning the program is not on track to reach the goal announced in late 2003. The agency set 3 million as its goal because it seemed to be a reasonable target that could inspire donors and poor countries to act quickly.
Donors have committed US$27 billion over the next three years but have delivered only US$9 billion, the health agencies said.
About 6.5 million of the 40 million people infected are so sick that they are within two years of death and need treatment immediately, officials said Wednesday in a telephone news conference from Geneva, where the WHO is based. For the first time, they included an estimate for desperately ill children -- 660,000, a tenth of the total.
The number of people desperately in need of drugs has grown by about half a million since the treatment goal was announced.
Progress has bogged down for several reasons, health officials said. Many countries have small model treatment programs, but not full-scale national plans.
Problems with drug delivery have been greater than expected, including issues as simple as countries not guaranteeing locked warehouses and trucks for the drugs, which are valuable and toxic if misused. Poor countries have few doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
RSS