- Monday, December 02, 2024
By: India Weekly
WORLD AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1. It is devoted towards educating people about HIV/AIDS and remembering those who fell prey to the dreaded disease.
This concept is the brainchild of two World Health Organisation officials James W Bunn and Thomas Netter and the first World AIDS Day was celebrated in 1988.
Theme
This year’s theme for World AIDS Day 2024 is “Take the rights path: My health, my right!”. It stresses on the importance of human rights while achieving the United Nations target of eradicating AIDS-related deaths by 2030.
To ensure that everyone has access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care services, the campaign highlights the necessity of addressing disparities, stigma, and prejudice.
Though progress has been made, challenges in access remain across the region. Marginalised populations continue to bear the brunt of AIDS.
Toll
AIDS has been a major public health concern and WHO estimates that 39.9 million people globally live with HIV, and 1.3 million new infections were reported in 2023.
The campaign against the disease has met with some successes. The number of new HIV infections and deaths has fallen across the world.
A study by Lancet HIV journal stated that during the 2010s, the number of HIV infections across the world declined by a fifth.
Deaths related to HIV, which are generally caused by other diseases during the late stages of AIDS, fell by about 40 per cent to below a million a year, the study added.
The decline has been driven by improving rates in sub-Saharan Africa, which is by far the hardest-hit region in the global epidemic.
But the progress has been uneven, and health experts warn that HIV is far from being stamped out.
The has been an increase in the HIV numbers in regions such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
In India, the government estimates that about 2.40 million people are living with HIV and 83 per cent are the in age group 15-49 years.
The epidemic is concentrated in few states — in the industrialized south and west, and in the north‐east.
Four states Andhra Pradesh (500,000), Maharashtra (420,000), Karnataka (250,000), and Tamil Nadu (150,000) account for 55 per cent of all HIV infections in the country.
West Bengal, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh account for another 22 per cent of HIV infections in India.
Effective tools
Preventative treatments called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) have proven to be a powerful tool in the fight against HIV.
These daily pills reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by around 99 per cent.
They have helped drive down HIV rates in many countries. In some, such as France, health authorities are urging PrEP to be made more available to more people, rather than just men who have sex with men.
“It is something that can be used by anyone who needs it at some point in their sexual life,” French infectious disease specialist Pierre Delobel told a press conference.
For people who have been infected with HIV, antiretroviral therapy can reduce the amount of the virus in their blood to undetectable levels.
An undetectable viral load means that there is less than a one per cent chance that breastfeeding mothers pass HIV onto their babies, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These tools have worked well in wealthier countries but the high costs have meant that poorer countries – such as in Africa – have often been left behind.
New drug
Early trials have found that the antiretroviral treatment lenacapavir is 100 per cent effective in preventing HIV infection.
And it only needs to be injected twice a year, making the drug far easier to administer than current regimens requiring daily pills.
However, the cost remains a challenge. US pharmaceutical giant Gilead has been charging around $40,000 per person per a year for the treatment in several countries.
But researchers estimate that the drug could be made for as little as $40, and called upon Gilead to allow for cheaper access in hard-hit nations.
Last month, Gilead announced it had signed licencing deals with six generic drugmakers to produce and sell lenacapavir in lower-income countries.
What about a vaccine?
Despite decades of effort, a vaccine for HIV remains elusive.
But the lenacapavir shot is “like having a vaccine basically”, Andrew Hill, a researcher at the UK’s Liverpool University, told AFP earlier this year.
A handful of patients have also been effectively cured of HIV. (Agencies)
