Dangerous
COMPLACENCY

Urgent change in approach is needed, researchers warn.

The HIV pandemic is not on track to end by 2030 and current approaches to HIV control are not enough to control it, according to a new Lancet Commission led by the International AIDS Society, reports Science Daily.

Changes to the HIV response are needed to win the global fight against HIV, and the authors propose that HIV researchers and health care professionals need to work more closely with their counterparts in global health, HIV services need to be included into wider health services, and global health policies need to incorporate HIV.

The report combines the expertise of more than 40 international experts who make recommendations for how HIV and global health can work together to advance global health and improve the HIV response. The report also models the impact of combining HIV within other health services in five countries, and is being presented at the AIDS 2018 conference in Amsterdam.

The authors call on HIV and global health researchers, health care professionals and policy makers to work together to improve the HIV response, arguing that this may be essential to achieve ambitious global HIV targets to end HIV by 2030, maintain treatment access, and more effectively fund the HIV response to also benefit broader health outcomes. 

The authors call for immediate increased funding to avert another epidemic, and while they recognize that the “exceptionalist” approach of the HIV response (where specific funding and health services have been provided for HIV alone) has been highly effective, they note that the approach may not be sustainable in the future.