12 million people with HIV are not receiving treatment

Coronavirus pandemic affects detection of new HIV cases

GAYLES.TV.- This December 1, World AIDS Day, World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 12 million of people in the world with HIV do not receive treatment, jeopardizing the goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat 2030. After decades of research, no vaccine has yet been found for the great pandemic of the late XNUMXth century.

En Spain there is more of 150.000 people with the HIV. Every year they are diagnosed 3.500 new infections due to the AIDS virus in Spain. The coronavirus effect may cause this figure to grow in the coming months. According to the latest report from National Center for Epidemiology of the Carlos III Institute, Present in several = 13% of infected people do not know they are.

In rich countries it has gone from being a fatal disease to a controllable chronic infection. This paradigm shift is due to the expansion of antiretroviral treatments, which allow those infected to have an undetectable viral load and, therefore, cannot transmit the disease.

The negative impact that the COVID-19 it could cause between 69.000 and 148.000 additional deaths in the world between this year and next. A survey of 127 countries in early 2020 found that a quarter partially discontinued antiretroviral treatment. The CEO of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom. has warned that «this risk has been compounded by interruptions in treatment«.

The positive data is that the objective of UNAIDS by 2020: that 90% of people infected with HIV know it, that 90% of these are in treatment and that 90% of the latter have undetectable viral load. The new challenge for the year 2030 is that these three objectives reach 95% and work is also being done to define and achieve a fourth objective, which would have to do with the fact that people with HIV + have a good quality of life.