AENEAS CHUMA: 40 years into the Aids epidemic, all eyes turn to the UN
The world is at a historic moment in its Aids response and the ESA region has contributed significantly to a new global strategy for the future to be adopted by the UN next week, writes Aeneas Chuma
Forty years ago, on 5 June 1981, the Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report described five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in gay men. The report foreshadowed the global Aids epidemic, which has since resulted in over 75-million HIV infections and 32-million deaths worldwide.
Since the 1980s we have witnessed remarkable moments in science and activism and, in the last year of Aids’ 40th decade, a global pandemic so unexpected and fierce it has made us rethink our preparedness for health emergencies past, present and future. A clear lesson from the colliding epidemics of HIV and Covid-19 is that if we do not put human rights and social justice at the centre of our response we are bound to fail...
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