“The 2022 Global AIDS Update showed the response to HIV is in jeopardy,” Byanyima said.

Pressing attention is needed to end inequalities that drive new Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS) infections and drive people away from services, she stressed.

Adolescent girls and young women in Africa face rates three times higher than their male counterparts, but as inequality is addressed through education and empowerment their risk of becoming infected is cut in half, Byanyima stressed.

In the debate about how inequalities perpetuate pandemics, the US Prof. Joseph Stiglitz expressed that “the fact we have not invested enough in US people´s health has resulted in a much higher death rate from Covid-19”.

pll/ode/joe