More than 18 million people living with HIV/AIDS do not have access to treatment

On World AIDS Day 2016, the Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA) strongly urges the need to raise awareness regarding HIV/AIDS and to support people living with HIV and ensuring their rights to have access to treatment.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 18 million people with HIV are currently taking ART, and a similar number is still unable to access treatment, the majority of which are unaware of their HIV positive status. Today, 40% of all people with HIV (over 14 million) remain unaware of their status. Many of these are people at higher risk of HIV infection who often find it difficult to access existing testing services.

Sharing injecting equipment is the most common form of transmission of HIV/AIDS in the MENA region. According to Harm Reduction International (HRI), there are an estimated 299,000 to 1,128,000 people who inject drugs in the MENA region.

MENAHRA urges the need to raise awareness and increase access to care for people living with HIV. Prevention programs reduced the number of new HIV infections per year to 2.1 million in 2015, a 35% decline in incidence since 2000. The massive expansion of antiretroviral therapy has reduced the number of people dying of HIV related causes to approximately 1.1 million 2015 – 45% fewer than in 2005.

World AIDS Day is an opportunity to raise awareness for civil society to work together with governments and decision makers to adopt policies and laws which secure the rights of people living with HIV in the region and reduce stigma and discrimination. MENAHRA urges all governments to also adopt and include harm reduction approaches, such as clean injecting equipment, in their national strategies in order increase the prevention of HIV/AIDS among people who use drugs.