Hong Kong can play key role in fight against Aids
- City’s success in battling the disease has won global acclaim and is a blueprint that can be shared with countries around the world
Nearly four decades since Hong Kong’s battle against Aids began, the city has earned praise for its progress against the disease. It should heed a fresh call from its admirers and step up with its expertise to help others around the world keep fighting.
Erasmus Morah, director and representative of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and Aids (UNAids) China Office, said it was a “very rare” achievement for the city to have cut the transmission rate of the immunodeficiency disease nearly in half over the past seven years.
The number of newly reported HIV infections in Hong Kong has dropped from a peak of 725 in 2015 to just 409 last year, a 43.6 per cent decrease.
As “a great window to the world”, Hong Kong can work hand in hand with the mainland to defeat Aids globally by sharing hi-tech solutions including digital diagnostic tools, that could be of most use by African countries.
Morah was in the city on December 4 to open the 7th Aids forum of Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. More than 100 experts and NGO representatives took part in the forum, which has been held every two years since 2010.
This year’s event in Hong Kong focused on ending stigmas surrounding HIV/Aids.
City leader John Lee Ka-chiu sent a video address saying that ending such discrimination was an “important goal” of his administration.
However, some of the experts at the event warned that many governments around the world have become less vigilant against HIV/Aids – in part because medical advancements have allowed those who have contracted the virus to live fairly normal lives.
Last year, the Hong Kong Advisory Council on Aids issued a five-year strategy that aims to eliminate Aids as a public health threat by 2030 by reducing the number of HIV infections to near zero.
There were 93 cases reported to Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection in the second quarter of 2023.
As of World Aids Day on December 1, the disease had claimed more than 40 million lives. There is plenty of work yet to be done and Hong Kong can play a life-saving role.
