Every 25 sec­onds, some­one in the world is in­fect­ed with HIV, and up to 25% of those liv­ing with HIV—more than nine mil­lion peo­ple—lack ac­cess to life­sav­ing treat­ment, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) re­vealed on World AIDS Day.

Ob­served an­nu­al­ly on De­cem­ber 1, this year, the theme for World AIDS Day is “Take the rights path: My health, my right!” 

In its mes­sage for this year’s ob­ser­vance, the WHO chal­lenged glob­al lead­ers and cit­i­zens to cham­pi­on the right to health by ad­dress­ing the in­equal­i­ties that hin­der progress in end­ing AIDS.

“The world can end AIDS—if every­one’s rights are pro­tect­ed,” the WHO stat­ed. “With hu­man rights at the cen­tre, with com­mu­ni­ties in the lead, the world can end AIDS as a pub­lic health threat by 2030.”

It added: “End­ing AIDS re­quires that we pri­or­i­tize and reach every­one who is liv­ing with, at risk for or af­fect­ed by HIV, in­clud­ing men who have sex with men, trans­gen­der peo­ple, peo­ple who in­ject drugs, sex work­ers, and peo­ple in pris­ons and oth­er closed set­tings, as well as their part­ners.”

The WHO un­der­scored its mes­sage by stat­ing that health care is a hu­man right.

“Every­one should have ac­cess to the health ser­vices they need, in­clud­ing HIV pre­ven­tion, treat­ment and care ser­vices when and where they need them. Pro­tect­ing the right to health means en­sur­ing that health care is avail­able to every­one, with­out any dis­crim­i­na­tion, re­gard­less of their HIV sta­tus, back­ground, gen­der or where they live,” the UN health body said.

It al­so lament­ed the fact that stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ue to un­der­mine the fight against AIDS.

“Peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk for or af­fect­ed by HIV of­ten ex­pe­ri­ence a dou­ble bur­den of the dis­ease it­self and the stig­ma around it,” the WHO not­ed. “Chal­leng­ing stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, as well as pro­tect­ing every­one’s hu­man rights are es­sen­tial to achiev­ing uni­ver­sal HIV care and break­ing down bar­ri­ers to ac­cess.”

And in his per­son­al mes­sage in ob­ser­vance of World AIDS Day, UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res made a call for re­mov­ing bar­ri­ers to vi­tal ser­vices to end AIDS as a pub­lic health threat by 2030.

“We will over­come AIDS if the rights of every­one, every­where, are pro­tect­ed,” he as­sert­ed.

The fol­low­ing is the full text on the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s mes­sage for World AIDS Day…

“End­ing AIDS as a pub­lic health threat by 2030 is achiev­able.

But reach­ing this goal re­quires break­ing down the bar­ri­ers keep­ing peo­ple from vi­tal ser­vices.

Every 25 sec­onds, some­one in the world is in­fect­ed with HIV.

One-quar­ter of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV — more than nine mil­lion peo­ple — lack ac­cess to life­sav­ing treat­ment.

Dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws, poli­cies and prac­tices pun­ish and stig­ma­tize vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple — es­pe­cial­ly women, girls and mi­nori­ties — pre­vent­ing their ac­cess to proven pre­ven­tions, test­ing, treat­ment and care.

This year’s World AIDS Day re­minds us the fight against AIDS can be won if lead­ers take a rights-based ap­proach to en­sure that every­one — es­pe­cial­ly the most vul­ner­a­ble — can get the ser­vices they need with­out fear.

The in­spi­ra­tional ad­vances made in the glob­al HIV re­sponse have been pow­ered by glob­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and hu­man rights.

We will over­come AIDS if the rights of every­one, every­where, are pro­tect­ed.

I call on all lead­ers to heed this year’s theme and take the ‘rights’ path.”