Over 20,000 HIV specialists, patients and activists were convened on Monday for their global conference. The conference was held this year in the shadow of another virus that causes a deadly new disease worldwide.
The new coronavirus confused the two-year plan. Instead of highlights and challenges, the story is now about locked-down people who are infected with HIV and cannot get wage and health insurance treatments, prophylactics, and even tests. Some studies have been threatened or postponed, and patients are depressed at home, as doctors and scientists are still looking for AIDS treatments and vaccines for 40 years.
Modeling performed by the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization shows that a six-month disruption in health services and treatments caused by coronaviruses results in an additional 500,000 additional HIV/AIDS variants and related diseases. We predict that this may lead to death of people. Saharan Africa in 2020 and 2021.
“I think this meeting will show us the impact of covid-19 in rolling back the progress we think we have made in HIV,” said Monica Virus, co-chair of San Francisco at the meeting. If not intervened, the city and Auckland. Instead, the gathering is expanded online.
“Before I was enthusiastic, the theme of the conference was” I knew how to treat, I knew how to prevent, I knew how to zero, I knew how to do it. More political will needed We need more commitment,” Gandhi said.
The first theme of AIDS 2020 this week was somewhat hopeful of a huge international conference that brought together thousands of people from all over the world. In recent years, significant advances in HIV have been made in several countries and new infections continue to decline worldwide. Even if the area lost 470,000 people in 2018 due to AIDS-related deaths, one of the bright spots in reducing infections was in sub-Saharan Africa.
Participants were intended to emphasize their determination to work harder for the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and other marginalized people who have not yet shared these uneven progress.
Winifred Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said at a news conference at a session held on Monday that the data pointed to “notable but highly unequal world developments.” “We have work to do.”
After that, the coronavirus circled the earth and everything changed.
Even the biennial conference that started on Monday has dramatically changed from a global gathering to a fully virtual conference. It’s a leap of faith in technology that can be accomplished in less than four months. Over 20,000 people from 175 countries have signed up for a four-day science, policy, activity and another one-day conference dedicated to coronaviruses.
The conference was a violent 1990 session that may best be remembered because of the 1987 controversial rule enacted by the federal government that prohibited persons infected with HIV from entering the United States. 30 years later, I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time, AIDS was almost unheard of, and in most cases fatal due to the feared virus. The only drug didn’t work well.
As a result of the ban, the United States did not host another international AIDS conference until the 2012 meeting in Washington, three years after President Barack Obama lifted the ban.
This year’s travel problems are the result of the coronavirus. In April and May, more than 91% of the researchers who surveyed more than 13,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people online in 138 countries online found that more than 91% were completely or partially blocked. Have been found to have an economic impact on people.
Of the 1,140 people who were HIV-positive, 26% said they experienced “interrupted or limited access” to the antiretroviral drug they were taking to treat the disease, 55% said ,hand.
73% of the group said they could not meet their basic needs and 1% relied on sex work.
One of the most disturbing confusions affects “pre-exposure prophylaxis” or PrEP distribution. PrEP blocked HIV infection and, along with treatment, transformed it from a death sentence to a manageable condition such as diabetes and high blood. pressure.
“In many places, PrEP is in its infancy,” said Stephen Barral, a member of a team who conducted an investigation with an associate professor of the Epidemiology Department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The PrEP program has grown rapidly over the last few years.”
“Undoubtedly, if people don’t have access to PrEP and tests, and they can’t do what they need to keep themselves safe, the decline in infections can slow down,” he said. Said Amritarao. We also worked on the survey presented at the conference.
In Ward 86, a safety net clinic for HIV-infected people in San Francisco, where Gandhi is the medical director, the number of people who had uncontrolled viral load increased 31% year-over-year in April.
In wealthy Western countries with better access to therapeutics and prophylactics, some men having sex with men were treated, prevented, and tested in a small study by Baral in April and other researchers. Reported a problem accessing the service.
“We, [HIV-related] Anton Pozniak, International Chairman of the Conference and Chairman of the International Association for AIDS, said:
“These are a remarkable and decisive era for the global HIV movement and the world,” he said at a news conference on Monday. “Every conversation we have today is at the confluence of the covid-19 pandemic and the new global calculation of systematic racism.”
In 2014, UNAIDS launched the 90-90-90 initiative, and by 2020, 90% of people living with HIV would be aware of the diagnosis, 90% of those infected would receive antiretroviral drugs, and the virus would cure. It was suppressed in 90% of those receiving.
The conference shows that the world is not close to achieving those goals. In just 14 countries, Swaziland (eSwatini) is also included. Twenty-seven percent of the population is infected with HIV and public health efforts reach 95% in all three categories.
According to a report released Monday, 38 million people were infected with HIV in 2019 and 690,000 died of AIDS-related diseases in 2019. About one-third of the infected were untreated.
Despite remarkable progress in eastern and southern Africa, where new infections have plummeted over the last 170 years, approximately 1.7 million new cases were infected in 2019. New battlefields are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and new HIV infections have increased 72% since 2010, the report shows.
In the United States, where President Donald Trump has pledged to stop HIV transmission by 2030, HIV is a disease of men and minority men who have sex with intravenous drug users. It concentrates on a few hotspots. Rural areas in seven southern states. Districts; Puerto Rico; and 48 counties scattered throughout the country.
However, progress here is stagnant. The number of new infections is stable between 36,000 and 38,000 each year. About 1.2 million people are infected with the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And now the coronavirus depends on it all.
“What we have been doing in the last 20 years is “Come into care”. .. .. And suddenly we tell people to leave the medical system,” Gandhi said.
She and other frontline workers have begun to spread rumors that people infected with, or at risk of becoming infected with, HIV are safe from coronaviruses in clinics and other healthcare facilities. It was.
“We will ensure that we maintain HIV as our primary focus,” Pozniak said, “we will do everything we can to keep prevention and testing and treatment going on. But resources go away from HIV. It’s tough as we move to covid, and we understand why it’s needed.”
