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Data reported to UNAIDS by countries has been used to project the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global response to HIV over the next five years. Various scenarios were modeled with different service outage durations ranging from three months to two years.
Disruptions included: (a) a rate of increase in HIV treatment half the rate prior to COVID-19; (b) no voluntary medical male circumcision; (c) 20% complete interruption of services to avoid vertical transmission; and (d) no extension of pre-exposure prophylaxis. An important assumption across all scenarios was that the current research line would generate one or more safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, and that the world will succeed in implementing vaccines globally.
The results of the model showed that COVID-19-related disorders can cause between 123,000 and 293,000 additional HIV infections and between 69,000 and 148,000 additional AIDS-related deaths worldwide. However, more positively, these projections show that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the response to HIV would be relatively brief. Using these projections, UNAIDS and its partners have concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic should not be a reason to delay the 2030 deadline for ending AIDS as a threat to public health.
