Sidaction 2024: commitments of 3.87 million euros

The Sidaction Association received €3.87 million in donations to fight AIDS during its 30th annual fundraising weekend, a similar amount to that raised last year.

“Thirty years after the first Sidaction, the public has responded to the association’s calls for donations and is sympathetic to current issues in the fight against AIDS,” the organization said in a Sunday press release, noting the result (€3,870,829). namely) “in balance compared to 2023.”

Last year, the association collected just over 3.9 million euros – a level close to 2022, but slightly below the record achieved in 2019 (4.5 million) and almost repeated in 2021.

The fundraiser, launched on Friday with the support of 35 media partners, remains open until April 12 via toll-free number 110. And donations are possible all year round via the Internet, mail or SMS.

“The journey is not over”

The 30th episode began with the broadcast of a video for Woodkid’s music, voiced by Mylene Farmer. France 2 then broadcast the evening during which Line Renaud was surrounded by the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier and Muriel Robin.

As always, funds will be donated to research and care programs, as well as to community programs providing care and assistance to people living with HIV in France and abroad, Sidaction said.

“Research must continue in search of a vaccine and treatment that will ultimately control the virus,” says the association, co-founded in 1994 by Pierre Berger and Line Renaud.

“Progress must be made in prevention, screening or access to treatment, even in France,” Sidaction president Francoise Barré-Sinoussi told AFP ahead of the event. “The road is not yet finished,” urged one of the discoverers of the virus in the early 1980s and winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008.

39 million people worldwide

In France, around 200,000 people are living with HIV, and 5,000 new HIV-positive cases were discovered in 2022.

Ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 remains possible, as UNAIDS assessed in late November in its annual report for World AIDS Day on December 1, but only if we provide resources and recognition to those on the front lines.

About 39 million people worldwide are living with HIV, but more than 9 million of them lack access to life-saving but effective treatment.

Although the disease is less devastating now, 630,000 people still died from AIDS-related pathologies in 2022.