This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
HIV in decline worldwide but thousands of children still being infected
HIV infections are in decline worldwide and more people living with HIV gain access to treatment – but still thousands of children are still “falling between the cracks”.
That’s the message on Tuesday from the United Nations agency leading the fight against the disease, UNAIDS.
In a report released ahead of World AIDS Day on Sunday, the agency said that nearly two in three people living with HIV now get treatment - an estimated 24.5 million out of 37.9 million people.
That means that fewer people are dying of AIDS-related diseases, but there are still major concerns that a quarter of a million children aren’t getting the care they need.
Here’s Peter Ghys, Director of Strategic Information and Evaluation for UNAIDS:
“A large gap exists in the treatment for children…And in this report we also show that some of that gap is actually in older children because often we think that programmes need to find newborns and give treatment, that is true, of course. But there is also a large number of older children. We estimate more than 250,000 children between 10 and 14 years old, that actually do not benefit today from anti-retroviral treatment.”
In a statement, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima also insisted that when people living with HIV actively participate in their own care, new infections drop and accessing treatment becomes easier.
‘Climate procrastination’ means we now need to cut emissions by more than half, urge UN climate experts
The world must more than halve greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years – by some 30 billion tonnes - to try to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the UN Environment Programme said on Tuesday.
Citing bleak findings from its latest report, the head of the UNEP-Danish Technology Institute Partnership, John Christensen, warned that “if you look at the global emissions, they are still going up”.
“If we are looking at the two degree (Celsius) target of just around two degrees, we have a gap of 12 to 15 gigatonnes, and if you’re looking at the 1.5 degree - which is really the desirable one - we have a gap of around 30 gigatonnes. And 30 gigatonnes is more than half of what we emit now, which is why we need to come down by 55 per cent in 10 years.”
At a press conference in Geneva, Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director, blamed “climate procrastination” by Governments, before calling for a 7.6 per cent reduction in global emissions every year between now and 2030.
Yemen’s warring parties must de-escalate, urges UN head of ceasefire mission
And finally to Yemen, where the UN official overseeing a key ceasefire agreement between the warring parties has expressed his deep concern about an escalation of violence in recent days around the key Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.
In a statement, Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha - Head of the United Nations Mission to support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) – condemned an increasing number of airstrikes in recent days and reports of victims.
These were in “stark contrast to the relative calm after the establishment of the observation posts” around the contested port by Government troops and largely Houthi opposition forces, he said, before calling for the belligerents to maintain the ceasefire.
Since fighting escalated in March 2015 in Yemen, thousands of people have been killed in what has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with millions suffering from food, fuel and healthcare shortages.
Daniel Johnson, UN News.
Duration: 3’22”
