MONTREAL, July 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A
new report released by the Global Fund today at the 24th International AIDS Conference unveils key findings of the activities supported by the
Global Fund's Breaking Down Barriers initiative, a groundbreaking program launched in 2017 to provide intensive financial and technical support to 20 countries* to address stigma and discrimination, criminalization and other human rights-related obstacles that continue to threaten progress against HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria.
"One of the most powerful lessons from the history of the fight against HIV is that success in confronting such a formidable disease cannot be achieved through biomedical interventions alone," said Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "We must also confront the injustices that make some people especially vulnerable to the disease and unable to access the health services they need. The same is true for TB, malaria, and other diseases, including COVID-19."In the context of HIV and TB, men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, people who inject drugs, people living with HIV, and people in prisons and other closed settings are socially marginalized, often criminalized and face a range of human rights abuses that increase their vulnerability to the diseases and undermine their access to health services.The key findings of the midterm assessments, which were conducted between 2019 and end 2021, reveal all countries involved in the
Breaking Down Barriers initiative saw progress in removing human rightsa??related barriers to HIV services, with a mean increase of 0.9 points from baseline on the 0-5 scale. However, even the top five scoring countries (Ukraine 3.7, Jamaica 3.5, Botswana 3.3, Senegal 3.1 and Kenya 3.1) are falling short of the scores that would represent a comprehensive response at a national level (above 4.0). Sierra Leone (+1.7), Jamaica (+1.6), Cameroon (+1.3) and Mozambique (+1.3) showed the greatest increase in scores.
