This year, we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of World AIDS Day, an annual event marked by countries around the world to advocate for more concerted action to prevent HIV and provide those who are living with HIV the lifesaving treatment they need in a manner that respects both human rights and their dignity.
In observing the Day this year, we take stock of our global commitments to reach the Sustainable Development Goal targets to end the AIDS epidemic as a major public health problem by 2030 and achieve universal health coverage. The Day therefore represents an opportunity to examine country progress and scale up actions needed to meet the national and regional targets.
Despite the commendable work being undertaken by the country to fight the epidemic, we are still facing obstacles and challenges in providing access to lifesaving treatment and services. While the annual number of new HIV infections in other regions is declining, it is increasing in Eastern Mediterranean Region and in Pakistan the number of new HIV infections has been increasing in recent years.
Estimated new infections increased to approximately 20,000 in 2018, which marks the highest rate of increase among all regional countries. As the HIV epidemic in the country expands, we can no longer wait to scale up access to more comprehensive packages for prevention, testing and treatment.
In moving towards the goal of universal health coverage, opportunities exist to strengthen our response to HIV and end the AIDS epidemic, particularly in the areas of ensuring financial risk protection and providing access to quality essential health care services and safe, effective care and treatment.
The time for action is now. On this World AIDS Day, we are calling government, technical partners, civil society, the private sector and academia to work towards achieving health for all and improving access of services for everyone to stop the rise in the number of new HIV infections and reduce the number of deaths from this totally preventable and manageable disease.
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