AIDS response 'under threat' amid human rights backlash - UN

The global response to AIDS is "under threat" because of an unprecedented backlash against human rights that is stigmatizing the groups most at risk of HIV infection, the head of the United Nations AIDS programme has warned.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said countries where there are laws against LGBTQ people, or which criminialise sex work or personal drug use, are largely the places seeing a rise or plateau in new infections. Stigma, discrimination and a lack of comprehensive sex education was also an issue, she said.

"This pushback - anti-human rights, anti-democratic, anti-gender equality - has put our work under threat," she told Reuters in an interview in London ahead of the launch of a new report from the organization she leads.

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