HIV. Infections remain consistently high, according to UN reports

More than 1.5 million people worldwide, many of them young girls, were infected amid pandemic disruptions in 2021.

As the world's attention was riveted on the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the fight against an older enemy lost crucial ground: over 1.5 million people have been infected with HIV. last year, about three times the global goal, the United Nations reported on Wednesday.

About 650,000 people died of AIDS in 2021, or about one every minute, according to UNAIDS. , the organization's program on H.I.V. and AIDS. Progress against the disease has slowed and global infections have remained stable since 2018.

The toll in 2021 has been uneven, as people aged 15-24 - and private young women—bearing a disproportionate share of the burden. A new infection in an adolescent girl or young woman occurred every two minutes, according to the program.

In sub-Saharan Africa, young people accounted for 31% of new infections, and nearly four out of five of them involved girls and young women. In El Salvador, the prevalence of H.I.V. nearly doubled among men who have sex with men and increased eightfold among transgender people.

In Asia and the Pacific, new cases of HIV. infections increased where they had decreased. And an estimated 160,000 children worldwide have been infected, despite the availability of prevention methods.

"These numbers should be more than just an alarm bell - this should represent an end point,” said Stephaun Wallace, an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

In most countries, including the United States , only privileged groups tend to have consistent access to HIV prevention and treatment, Dr. Wallace said. "Oppressed groups in different parts of the world, or essentially lower in the social hierarchy, don't have the same access," he said.

An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV globally. including about half of infected children, do not have access to treatment.

Fortunately, bea uch of those who were already receiving treatment continued to do so in 2021, thanks in part to H.I.V. programs in some countries. But the past two years have brought relentless waves of challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, that have disrupted HIV prevention and diagnosis.

ImageAn AIDS ward in a hospital in Bangui, Central African Republic, in January.Credit...Barbara Debout/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Millions of girls were out of school as the coronavirus spread, and teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence increased. The pandemic has caused poverty rates and fuel costs to skyrocket.

The war in Ukraine has led to a further spike in food prices and stresses in supply chains.

"In times of economic crisis, women - especially young women - are going to rely more on transactional sex as a source of income," said said Harsha Thirumurthy, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's not exclusively, but overall, an economic story."

In 2021, debt repayment for low-income countries was 171% spending on health, education and social protection combined. Donor countries tightened the purse strings and the H.I.V. funding from countries other than the United States fell 57%...