Recognising the scale of the challenge still to be met, the international development community set an ambitious target within the Sustainable Development Goals to eliminate AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
UNAIDS has set interim targets for 2020, which if achieved, will put us on course to reaching the SDG target by 2030:
• Less than 500 000 new HIV infections annually
• Less than 500 000 AIDS related deaths annually
• Elimination of HIV related stigma
If these interim goals are met, 18 million new HIV infections and 11 million AIDS related deaths will be prevented. UNAIDS estimates that to meet the SDG target, we must fill a funding gap of $7 billion annually, by 2020. This would represent a 1/3 increase in funding for the HIV response but would be enough to double number of people accessing prevention and treatment services, as the response becomes more efficient.