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

FILE PHOTO: HIV/AIDS patients and LGBTQ members hold an advocacy placard at the Ice Breakers Uganda (IBU) clinic in Makindye that supports HIV/AIDS programmes and treatment for the LGBTQ community in Salaama road, Kampala, Uganda June 1, 2023. REUTERS/Abubaker Lubowa

LONDON (Reuters) -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 criminalise sex work or personal drug use, are largely the places seeing a rise or plateau in new infections.