UNODC participates in the GT/UNAIDS meeting

 

Brasília, 5 October 2016, United Nations Expanded Theme Group on HIV/Aids (GT/UNAIDS) was held yesterday, 4 October, at the UN House in Brasilia.

At the time, Rafael Franzini, the representative of the United Nations Office on drugs and Crime (UNODC), current President of the GT/UNAIDS, after opening the meeting, emphasized the relevance and comprehensiveness of the GT/UNAIDS and passed the word to the resident coordinator of the UN System in Brazil, Niky Fabiancic. In his speech, Niky Fabiancic mentioned the priorities of SDGs HIV-related and the Brazilian context, the Brazil commitment to "leave no man behind", i.e. to not discriminate against any group of civil society so that everyone can receive the proper treatment. Highlighting the key group which is more affected by the contamination and at the same time the one which suffers more from discrimination - such as sex workers, homosexuals, transgender and transvestites.

 

Niky Fabiancic also talked about the critical moment in the Aids response in the world, but that progress was made in the polls, in the treatment and prevention measures.

In order to highlight the interdependence of the Aids response to SDGs, Niky spoke about the SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and the SDG 4 (quality education), in order to bring the treatment to people infected and still promote information about prophylaxis measures. He related the response to the disease with the SDG 5 (gender equality), and emphasized the need to end discrimination; and with the SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) in the sense of cooperation between States and institutions in the Aids response.

To end his speech, the resident coordinator of the UN System in Brazil spoke about the 90/90/90 Goals: until 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know they have the virus; 90% of all people living with HIV are diagnosed and receive antiretroviral therapy without interruption and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy have viral suppression.

 

As a result, the Director of the Department of STI/AIDS and viral hepatitis, Adele Schwartz Benzaken, in her presentation on "new perspectives on the response to HIV in Brazil" presented the overview of Aids in Brazil, with 798,000 cases detected over the historical series and an average of 40,000 new cases detected each year. "There has been an increase in the detection of aids in men and women, in comparison between 2005 and 2014. In the age group of 15 to 19 years (triples), 20 to 24 years (doubles) and 25 to 29 years (17%) increase "Adele. However, there was a 10.9% drop in Aids mortality, compared to the years of 2003 and 2015. "The estimate is that there are 827,000 people living with HIV/aids in Brazil, but each year increases the number of people in treatment. Currently, there are 473,000. There has been an increase of 174% in the number of new people in treatment per year between 2009 and 2015, "she added. Finally, the Director of the STI/AIDS Department reported an increase of 31.4% between 2014 and 2015, HIV tests performed and the distribution of approximately 8,500,000 of rapid tests of HIV in 2015.

 

Then, Georgiana Braga, UNAIDS Director, reported on the UN high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS and the political declaration on the end of 2016, whose goals are to double the number of people on treatment; accelerate the reach of HIV prevention; eliminating new HIV infections in children, as well as a new focus on women, girls, young people and gender equality.

UNAIDS Director also gave an update on #EuAbraço campaign the Olympics and Paralympics. The campaign, carried out in partnership with the Ministry of health with UNESCO, UNFPA and the European Union, was inspired by the Principle of the Olympic Charter, paragraph 6: "the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, whether of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, nationality, property, birth or any other status".

 

Finally, the analyst of the UNODC Health and Development Unit, Francisco Cordeiro, introduced a programme component BRA/004/15 that will be developed by UNODC. The objective is to support the Departament of STI/Aids and viral hepatitis in expanding access of key populations at actions of testing, prevention and treatment for STI, HIV/Aids and viral hepatitis. The actions include the development and adaptation of material, training of professionals of different categories and evaluation studies on the expansion of access to new technologies for prevention for key populations, with an emphasis on people who use drugs.

To promote the #EuAbraço campaign, a series of "abraçaços" have been proposed in order to use the symbolic force of the hug for encouraging people to adopt attitudes of union, affection, friendship, respect and combat discrimination. In addition, more than 500,000 condoms and 10000 sachets of gel and several rapid tests for HIV in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador were distributed. The idea is that the action was made during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but with the success of more than 2000 kilometers registered by " abraçômetro", the campaign extends until 10 December.

 

At the end of the meeting of the GT/UNAIDS, gifts made a abraçaço, which was accounted for by the abraçômetro, to encourage even more people to participate in the zero discrimination campaign.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the United Nations, government sectors, representatives of embassies, members of civil society and cooperation partners.

 

 

"We thank our UN Online Volunteer, Alexandra Fernandes Rodrigues, for her contribution to the translation of this article".  Alexandra is an online volunteer mobilised through www.onlinevolunteering.org". 

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