{"id":41373,"date":"2026-08-03T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=41373"},"modified":"2026-08-03T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:43:00","slug":"international-aids-conference-concludes-in-rio","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/international-aids-conference-concludes-in-rio\/","title":{"rendered":"International AIDS conference concludes in Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The 26th International AIDS Conference concluded on Friday in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Discussions have\u00a0centred\u00a0around numerous issues, however, the diminishing international funding for aid, which has been evident since early last year, remains at the forefront.<\/p>\n

A special report released by United Nations Programme on HIV\/AIDS (UNAIDS) during the conference, indicates that reductions in international funding, coupled with cuts to HIV prevention and community services, are likely to result in a resurgence of the epidemic.<\/p>\n

The report reveals that, while new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have reached their lowest levels in over 30 years, the current HIV response remains highly fragile.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the report indicates that efforts to eliminate AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 are jeopardised unless global solidarity is revived and inequalities are addressed.<\/p>\n

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a global HIV\/AIDS organisation that has been serving 3 million patients in 50 countries since 1987, providing medicine and advocacy regardless of the ability to pay.<\/p>\n

The organisation is participating in the International AIDS Conference.<\/p>\n

Dr. Adele Schwartz Benzaken, the Senior Medical Director at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, highlighted that financial sustainability following the departure of major donors, particularly in Africa, has been a key topic at the conference.<\/p>\n

“The disruption already educed the response, and we hope that could be reversed soon because this is going to be a step back in a decade of progress. But the conference is also focused on protecting community need and more and more how community can participate in this response and by saying that, \u00a0the challenger is how to monitor the community lead response. \u00a0We also discussed a lot about improving retention in care. As you know, this get in and get out of the clients in the facility is something that we have to think very serious and compromise the virus suppression and by doing that also increase transmission if the client is not suppressed. So, there is a lot of participants in the global village from rural population. I was having some discussion and interview with transgender women about human rights and discrimination of it. Also, we discussed the integrating service for HIV and syphilis.”<\/p>\n

The South African (SA) National Aids Council, which is a voluntary association of institutions established by South Africa’s cabinet to coordinate and enhance the country’s response to HIV, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted infections\u00a0(STIs), is part of the conference.<\/p>\n

They say while there have been many discussions, the excitement is around newer prevention technologies.<\/p>\n

Their contribution to the conference was an announcement that they have started a process of putting together a list of SA companies that could produce Lenacapavir for countries in the Southern African Development Community.<\/p>\n

The Chief Executive Officer of the council, Dr Thembisile Hulu, elaborates further.<\/p>\n

“We were able to launch that and to announce that we made that submission to Gilead. And there were many sessions where countries that were selected by the Global Fund to be early adopter countries of Lena Kepawe, where they are starting to report what are some of the early challenges that they are experiencing as they roll out Lena Kepawe. So, it was more of lessons learned. There were many sessions focused on prevention. And you’ll understand to see why it’s important. In SA, we’ve got a good 55 million plus people to keep HIV negative.”
\nAnother organization participating in the conference is the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) from SA.<\/p>\n

They say this year’s conference comes at a time when the HIV response has seen a critical decline.<\/p>\n

Ritshidze Coordinator at TAC, Ndivhuwo Rambau, says at this conference they were able to witness the effects of the funding cuts, that a lot of organizations had to cut down on their programs, some closed while others had to let go of their staff.<\/p>\n

She says now it’s time for collaboration.<\/p>\n

“I think what it is now telling us is that we need to work together. \u00a0It’s not a time to be working against each other. So, organisations are finding themselves having to share resources, for example. \u00a0It’s a critical time for civil society organisations and governments to work together and not work against each other to ensure that each country is able to reach their 95 targets or the overall targets to end AIDS by 2030.”<\/p>\n

–Channel Africa\/ Sisi Segalo–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41054,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-41373","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"International AIDS Conference","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41374,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41373\/revisions\/41374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}