According to the World Health Organization, 36.9 million people around the world are now living with HIV or AIDS. “Who knows, it might take fifty years but it will change”.
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Almost 2.5 million people worldwide become new victims of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) each year although deaths from the deadly virus have been steadily declining from a peak in 2005, finds a study. “As people with HIV live longer, Aids is a topic that has drifted from the headlines, and with that drift of attention we risk a real drift of funding and of action to beat the virus”, he added.
Professor Peter Piot, Director at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said, “The continuing high rate of over 2 million new HIV infections represents a collective failure which must be addressed through prevention efforts and continued investment in HIV vaccine research”.
A massive scale-up of efforts from governments and worldwide agencies will be required to meet the goal of ending AIDS, along with better detection and treatment programmes and improving the affordability of antiretroviral drugs, the researchers said.
Here are a few facts with respect to the disease at the continental and global levels. Outside of Africa, south Asia accounted for 8.5% (212500), southeast Asia for 4.7% (117500), and east Asia for 2.3%.
The countries that saw an increase in infections between 2005 and 2015 are Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya, Philippines, Cambodia, Mexico, and Russian Federation.
Globally in 2015, there were on average 29 new infections an hour among those in this age group.
After the intervention, 81 percent of people with HIV had an undetectable viral load, because they tested, initiated medication and adhered to it successfully, up from 45 percent two years earlier.
“Today, some countries have no babies born with HIV”.
Elton John called the prince a powerful ally in the fight against AIDS, the leading cause of death among adolescents in Africa, where around 30 people are infected every hour.
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Public health facilities can offer generic versions of PrEP for $100 a year or less, he said. “But many children living with HIV still lack treatment”, he said. The study reveals that there are still large uncertainties and gaps in knowledge about the HIV incidence in many settings. “PrEP has to be part of the puzzle for ending HIV”.
