The society plans to raise its concerns during the 23rd International AIDS conference, which began Monday.
"The social distancing efforts and lockdowns to control the spread of it [coronavirus], have disrupted HIV prevention and treatment programs and put vital HIV research on hold," said Dr. Anton Pozniak, president of the International AIDS Society, last week.
A survey released in June by the NGO Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria found that across 106 of the countries it works in, 85% had reported disruptions to their HIV services, 78% to tuberculosis services, and 73% to malaria services. Nearly 20% reported severe disruptions for all three diseases.
Models by the World Health Organization, Stop TB partnership and Imperial College London have predicted that such disruptions could lead to more than 1 million extra deaths across these three diseases.
For example, recent models commissioned by the World Health Organization and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) estimated that a six-month disruption to services in sub-Saharan Africa alone could lead to an extra 500,000 deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in 2021. This is on top of a likely 470,000 deaths that would have occurred, based on 2018 numbers.