video: CCTV/AFRICA
(UNITED NATIONS) December 1, 2016-Speaking at a special event ahead of World AIDS Day, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon November 30 underscored the need to stop stigma and abuse against those living with the disease and to ensure that they receive the care, treatment and protection they are entitled to.
Ban said “hatred and bigotry spread disease and – as the founders of this movement taught – silence equals death.”
Further in his remarks, Ban highlighted the progress made in addressing the disease, including halving the number of children infected through mother-to-child transmission and doubling the number of people with access to medicines.
Fashion model and AIDS activist Naomi Campbell told the meeting that millions of young women and adolescent girls are at risk of HIV or dying from AIDS. She said young women face a “triple threat” of “not knowing her HIV status, not accessing live-saving treatments, and not being empowered to protect herself from HIV.”
The special event was organized by UNAIDS under the theme ‘Moving forward together: Leaving no one behind’ to collectively endeavour to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At a later press conference the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, said “if you can put people early on treatment, I just said early on treatment, you can reduce the infection by 96 percent, so, which is very important news because we didn’t have that scientific knowledge a few years back. And today we can talk about treatment becoming even a strong tool for prevention, and that is key. That’s why we should not have a resistance to the first generation of medicine we have today. We need to make sure that people can suppress the activity of the virus in their blood by having access to those treatments.”
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