Luxembourg cooperation with UNAIDS continues until 2025

On Tuesday afternoon, the Minister for Cooperation Franz Fayot signed a new strategic partnership agreement with the director of UNAIDS Winnie Byanyima. The cooperation between the Luxembourgish government and the UN agency will continue until 2025.

According to Franz Fayot, Luxembourg is an important partner for UNAIDS thanks to the stable and predictable financing it can provide, but also due to its 'Education+' initiative for young people and women, and its focus on West and central Africa, which is particularly ravaged by the disease.

UNAIDS also fights against the stigmatisation of LGBTQ people and puts a lot of emphasis on access to health services. Its priority is to put vulnerable and marginalised populations at the centre of the fight against AIDS.

Its aim is to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. An important part of this is raising awareness in developing countries, making vaccination widely available and increasing resistance against the virus, thus enabling affected people to live with the virus.

Proportionally, Luxembourg is the country making the largest contributions, with 4.2 million euro in 2021.

The lessons drawn from the Coronavirus were both positive and negative, says Winnie Byanyima. On the one hand, we have seen how quickly a vaccine can be found if the entire world gets together. On the other hand, there has been a clear lack of a coherent international plan, while individual nationalist plans had only limited results.

The first infection with HIV was documented 40 years ago. 35 million people have died of the virus since, 650,000 of them just last year - so the disease is far from vanquished. Still, 75% of affected people these days are in treatment and able to lead a normal life.