HIV: no one is safe until we are all safe

The world's attention has been focused by the COVID-19 pandemic on health and on how the pandemic has affected lives and livelihoods. It has confirmed starkly how health is interlinked with other critical issues, for example, reducing inequalities, human rights, gender equality, social protection and economic growth. The 2022 World AIDS Day theme is ‘Global solidarity, shared responsibility’.

Around the world, the pandemic has resulted in many people having to make changes to how they live their lives, exacerbating the challenges faced by people living with HIV, women and girls, and key populations, including in how they access life-saving health care. Over this period, the increased vulnerability of these marginalised groups has also led to a widening of social and economic inequalities.

COVID-19 has demonstrated that, during a pandemic, no one is safe until we are all safe: leaving people behind is not an option if we are to succeed in reducing health inequalities. Eradicating stigma and discrimination, putting people with HIV at the centre of care and focusing our responses on human rights and the provision of gender-responsive approaches are crucial to ending the colliding pandemics of HIV and COVID-19.