A recent report by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization found that about 33 million people are infected with HIV. New HIV infections have been reduced by 17 percent over the past eight years. Michel Sidibe is the executive director of UN AIDS.

Michel Sidibe: “In term of death, which is very important, worldwide we are seeing a drops of numbers of new deaths, which is critical. During the last five years only, with the fact that we have been able, with the support of different programs, to scale up treatment programs, which has been increased by tenfold during the last five years, we are seeing a decrease in mortality by 18 percent.”

Michel Sidibe said while the decline in mortality was partly due to HIV prevention programs, more is needed to be done by governments to stop the discrimination of those groups at higher risk of HIV infection, including gay men.

Michel Sidibe: “We are seeing a lamentable trend of criminalization of those group of people. Today you have more than eighty countries with homophobic laws, which are just considering that having a different sexual orientation is criminal, and those countries are just arresting those people. So they are hiding themselves. They are fueling epidemic, because they are discriminated, because they are stigmatized, and because they cannot have access to services.”