Jul. 6, 2020

AIDS 2020 OPENING PRESS CONFERENCE

The opening press conference of the international aids conference slated for July 2020 in San Francisco and Oakland California USA is completed by virtual presentations for the first time in of the conference history with participants from 175 countries registered
The press conference which started at 10 am USA Eastern time was chaired by the president of the international aid society , Anton Pozniak, who says that " Every conversation we have now sat at the confluence of COVID 19 pandemic and the new global reckoning with systemic Racism ".
UNAIDS president Winnie Byanyima spoke of the challenges her organization faces with COVID 19 pandemic and asked the world to address the disruptions in the global aids response related to COVID 19, emphasizing, political will, financial commitment, human rights, and therapeutics.
The new global aids report from UNAIDS shows that the world is not on track to ending HIV/aids by 2030 as Byanima revealed.
The director-general of WHO Dr. Tedros shared findings of a new WHO report which are deeply troubling to him. He warned that the nations of the world should not allow COVID 19 pandemic undo the hard-won gains in the global response to HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Tedros asked for accelerated efforts to combat aids comorbidities, like TB, opportunistic infections with special emphasis on vulnerable and high-risk groups including sex workers, people injecting drugs, prison populations, males having sex with males, transgenders.
Shannon Hader in her presentation talked about innovations in therapeutics and decriminalization of drug users, LGBT people, Sex workers, and Drug shooters.
The supply chain close to delivery of services was encouraged, with the need to scale up medical and health commodities production and distribution, and use of self-care, and self-testing.
Dr. Akwo Thompson Ntuba