$32 billion is needed to eradicate disease by 2030 - UNAIDS

Global HIV/AIDS body, UNAIDS has said the world needs to dramatically step up investment as well as access to treatment to roll back AIDS.

Noting that there has been remarkable strides with the 1996 advent of antiretroviral drugs, which suppresses HIV, the UN stated that a lot more needs to be done.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said "the world has delivered on halting and reversing the AIDS epidemic, now we must commit to ending the AIDS epidemic.”

UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe in a report entitled “How AIDS changed everything” pointed out that "in 2011 world leaders called for reaching 15 million people with life-saving HIV treatment by 2015. And that is exactly what the world did — ahead of schedule,”

The report also stated that although new HIV infections declined to 2 million in 2014 against 3.1 million 14 years ago and in 83 countries the number of new infections has noticeably decreased or remained stagnant, spending on AIDS has dropped.

There are currently 36.9 million people living with HIV around the world, and around March this year, 15 million of them were accessing antiretroviral therapy.

UNAIDS said further increases and efficient reallocation were needed to address the “increased need of earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy” and called for AIDS spending of $32 billion (29 billion euros) annually between now and 2020 in the hope of eliminating the virus by 2030.

A chunk of the money is also needed to ensure that those affected can gain access to therapy.

The UNAIDS boss however said he was hopeful that the next decade would “give us a more effective vaccine”.

2015 is the deadline year for the Millennium Development Goals which in September 2000 rallied the world around a common 15-year agenda to tackle poverty and hunger, prevent deadly but treatable diseases and expand educational opportunities to all children.

Come September, world leaders will gather at the United Nations in New York to adopt a new agenda for sustainable development in which health is a top priority.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region worst hit by AIDS with 25.8 million people living with HIV, and last year, there were 1.4 million new HIV infections — a 39% drop from 2000.