DNA 21 July

 Half of HIV-infected get treatment now: UNAIDS

• The report, Ending AIDS: Progress towards the 90-90-90 target, is the annual scorecard for progress
• The idea behind the 90-90- 90 target is 1) to diagnose 90% of people who are HIV positive; 2)get 90% of the diagnosed HIV+ people on antiretroviral treatment, and 3) 90% of those on antiretrovirals should be virally suppressed.
• The latest UNAIDS report,reveals that more than half of all People Living with HIV (PLHIV) now have access to HIV treatment
• For the first time since the global onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the scales have tipped in favour of patients
• "We met the 2015 target of 15 million people on treatment, and we are on track to double that number to 30 million and meet the 2020 target," said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS.
• As of last year, 19.5 million of the 36.7 million HIV+ patients had access to treatment.
• Further, globally AIDS-related deaths have almost halved since 2005.
• Deaths caused by AIDS have fallen from 1.9 million in 2005 to 1 million in 2016.
• The bad news is that the majority of the cases - nearly 95 per cent of the cases in 2016 - were concentrated in just 10 countries, India being one of them.
• India has 2.1 million people living with HIV, with 80,000 new infections annually, as of 2016. In 2005, the annual incidence was 1,50,000 people.
• “India is the country where most new HIV infections are occurring in the Asia-Pacific region.
• port Team for Asia-Pacific. 
• While the world seems to be on track to reach the global target of 30 million people on treatment by 2020, access to medicines remains a major barrier and India plays a special role. The report states that “although important progress has been made in improving access to medicines for people living with HIV, insufficient availability and poor affordability of essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries remain major barriers 
• Actions focused on the intersections between intellectual property rights, innovation, and public health are vitally important for resolving market failures in medicine development and manufacture, unmet needs for research and development, and pricing. 
• This is especially true in light of the concentration of the generic pharmaceutical industry in India, and the global AIDS response’s continued reliance on the Indian industry, which supplied nearly 90% of antiretroviral medicines in low- and middle-income countries in 2015”

 India and China should withdraw together

•  India's MEA:All countries are with us .All countries understand that the position India has adopted is not unreasonable.
• Our position is just and all countries recognise our position as such
• Highlighted that Panchsheel, the Nehruvian principle of peaceful mutual coexistence, is on track but any unilateral altering of the border by China will amount to a “direct threat” to India’s security concerns    
• The comment on Panchsheel is significant as the English media from Beijing in recent weeks had described the Indian action in Doklam, as against Panchsheel’s emphasis on ‘peaceful co-existence 
• BRICS summit “National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will travel to China to participate in the BRICS NSAs’ meeting

Panchsheel:
This agreement stated the five principles as:

• Their first formal codification in treaty form was in an agreement between China and India in 1954.
• The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known in India as the Panchsheel Treaty are a set of principles to govern relations between states.
• Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
• Mutual non-aggression.
• Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
• Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit.
• Peaceful co-existence.