PRESS STATEMENT
UNAIDS welcomes the United Nations General
Assembly decision to hold a high-level meeting
on HIV and AIDS in 2021
GENEVA, 25 February 2021—UNAIDS
welcomes the United Nations General
Assembly decision for a high-level meeting on HIV and AIDS to take place between 8
and 10 June 2021. The high-level meeting will review the progress made in reducing
the impact of HIV since the last United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting
on HIV and AIDS in 2016 and the General Assembly expects to adopt a new political
declaration to guide the future direction of the response. The high-level meeting will
take place as the world marks 40 years since the first case of AIDS was reported and
25 years of UNAIDS.
“World leaders must seize the opportunity
offered by this new United Nations General
Assembly high-level meeting on HIV and AIDS to maintain their focus and
commitment on ending AIDS as a public health threat as part of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director. “The
AIDS epidemic is unfinished business and must be ended for everyone everywhere,
including for young women and adolescent girls and for other groups of people
disproportionately affected by HIV. The right to health belongs to all
of us.”
Progress towards ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 as part
of the Sustainable Development Goals has been highly uneven and the global goals
for 2020 adopted in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS
were not met. Stigma and discrimination, the marginalization and criminalization of
entire communities and a lack of access to health, education and other essential
services continue to fuel the epidemic. Women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa and
key populations (gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers,