A new report released on July 22 at the 10th IAS Conference on HIV Science in Mexico City, Mexico, shows that the world is lagging behind in its commitment to end the AIDS epidemic among children and adolescents. The report, Start Free, Stay Free, AIDS Free, shows that the pace of progress in reducing new HIV infections among children and expanding access to treatment for children, adolescents and pregnant women living with HIV has slowed significantly and that global targets set for 2018 have been missed, despite important gains being made in some countries.

“The disparity in viral load suppression rates among adolescents with HIV compared to adults is unacceptable and behooves the global community to advocate for more robust, potent antiretroviral therapy regimens for adolescents as well as to hasten efforts to prevent new infections in this critically vulnerable population,” said Fatima Tsiouris, Deputy Director of the Clinical and Training Unit and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Lead at ICAP, Columbia University.

Read the full article on the UNAIDS website

Read the article in Portuguese on the UN-Brazil site