The Latin American and Caribean Council of Non-governamental Organizations Working on HIV/Aids Services (Laccaso) issued a letter publicizing its concern in relation to the critical situation faced by people living with HIV/AIDS in Venezuela.

The idea that the end of AIDS is near has been announced recently in international events on the disease, but it creates a “smokescreen” for governments to hide budget cuts to programs and the shortage of the latest antiretroviral drugs. According to American anthropologist Richard Parker, 60, Full Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, New York, despite real strides in AIDS treatment, huge challenges remain, like the fact that 50% of patients lack access to treatment. The Director and President of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association says that even Brazil’s successful HIV/AIDS program has begun to lose strength, with difficulties in incorporating the more expensive drugs, besides logistics problems.

While many of the leading international agencies focusing on the global AIDS epidemic have expressed significant optimism about the possibility of ending the epidemic in the near future, the Director and President of ABIA again questions the argument that we are nearing the end of the AIDS.  Parker published the article “From a global crisis to the End of AIDS: new epidemics of signification” in Global Public Health, a respected academic journal published in the United Kingdom specializing in global health.

AIDS activists take over the opening of the ADIS Conference in Paris (Julay, 2017) to honor and remember prudence Mabele and demand a asswwmbled address the crisis of too many deaths among those already on Arvs. Demand access to new Arvs,  drugs made by researchers and Big Pharma at the conference for all.