More than 200.000 HIV infections in Spain since 2003
This year they are 40 years of the first case of HIV en Spain. It was a 35-year-old patient who was admitted for a headache and Kaposi's sarcoma in the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona in october 1981. Operated urgently for a tumor, he died four days after admission. Forty years later, scientific advances allow those infected to lead normal, self-sufficient lives. The total cure or its vaccine, still in the experimental phase, have yet to come, but at least AIDS no longer means death.
More than 200.000 infections by HIV, 60.000 deceased for AIDS-related causes and 3.200 newly diagnosed every year. Around the world there have been 80 million cases and around 36 million deaths. Figures behind which there are many human lives marked not only by the virus but also by the social stigma. Four decades of lights and shadows of a disease that each December 1 commemorate his international Day, date proposed by the WHO in 1988.
Much has changed since then. Now there is no longer the taboo as when they called it «pink cancer" wave "Triple H»Because they said it only affected hemophiliacs, homosexuals and heroin addicts«. But now there is the social stigma and, above all, labor.
Late diagnoses
46% of the cases diagnosed in 2019 They were late and, although it is still perceived as a disease of the elderly, 26% of the newly infected were between 20 and 29 years old. Health associations estimate that between 14% and 18% of cases in Spain have not been diagnosed.
Despite still being an infection that cannot be cured, advances in treatments have made hope and quality of life of those who have it is similar to that of those who do not. Whether in pills or injections, antiretrovirals They have already achieved that those who test positive stop having a detectable viral load in a matter of months. The virus is not eradicated, but infection of other people is prevented. The number of deaths maintains a downward line since it reached its peak in 1995 and 2020 closed with 365, according to the National Institute of Statistics; a historically low figure.
