Tag Archives: AIDS

More than 18 million on AIDS treatment a million more than 2015

A nurse (L) hands out a red ribbon to a woman, to mark World Aids Day, at the entrance of Emilio Ribas Hospital, in Sao Paulo

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, Nov 21 – More than 18 million people now have access to life-saving AIDS treatment, 1.2 million more than at the end of last year, the United Nations said on Monday.

In a report on the AIDS pandemic, which has infected 78 million people and killed 35 million since it began in the 1980s, UNAIDS said the consistently strong scale-up of treatment has seen annual AIDS-related deaths drop by 45 percent to 1.1 million in 2015 from a peak of about 2 million in 2005.

But, as more HIV-positive people live longer, the challenges of caring for them as they get older, of preventing the virus spreading and of reducing new infections are tough, UNAIDS said, even though drugs can reduce virus levels in a patient’s blood to near zero and significantly reduce the risk of passing it on.

“The progress we have made is remarkable, particularly around treatment, but it is also incredibly fragile,” UNAIDS’ executive director Michel Sidibe said as the report was published.

With detailed data showing some of the many complexities of the HIV epidemic, the report found that people are particularly vulnerable to HIV at certain points in their lives.

It called for “life-cycle” approach to offer help and prevention measures for everyone at every stage of life.

As people with HIV grow older, they are at risk of developing long-term side-effects from HIV treatment, developing drug resistance and requiring treatment for other illnesses such as tuberculosis and hepatitis C.

The report also cited data from South Africa showing that young women who become infected with HIV often catch the virus from older men. It said prevention is vital to ending the epidemic in young women and the cycle of HIV infection needs to be broken.

“Young women are facing a triple threat,” said Sidibe. “They are at high risk of HIV infection, have low rates of HIV testing, and have poor adherence to treatment.”

The report, saying the number of people with HIV getting life-saving drugs was 18.2 million, also showed that the rapid progress in getting AIDS drugs to those who need them is having a significant life-extending impact.

In 2015, there were 5.8 million people aged over 50 living with HIV – more than ever before.

UNAIDS said that if treatment targets are reached – the U.N. is aiming to have 30 million HIV positive people on treatment by 2020 – that number will soar.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

UNICEF: Adolescent AIDS deaths have tripled since 2000

The number of adolescents who have died from AIDS has tripled in the past 15 years, and the disease is the second-leading cause of death in the age 10-19 population across the globe.

That’s according to data released Friday by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, which added that the disease is the top killer for adolescents who are living in Africa. The organization, known more commonly as UNICEF, said adolescents are the only group that has not seen a drop in death rates in the past 15 years despite advances in disease prevention and treatment.

UNICEF said most of its data indicates most of the adolescents who are dying were infected with the disease when they were infants, when the treatments that help prevent infected pregnant mothers from passing the disease onto their children were not as common as they are today.

The UNICEF data showed that about 1.3 million children have been spared from the disease since 2000, largely thanks to improvements in mother-to-child transmission prevention. It said 60 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women get medicine to prevent AIDS from spreading.

Despite those advances, the organization noted some shortfalls for the adolescent age group.

UNICEF said only one-third of the 2.6 million children under 15 who are living with AIDS are treated for the infection. It also announced that only 11 percent of 15-to-19-year-olds are tested for the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, where the infection rate is the most prevalent.

The disease also remains a problem for those who are not born with it.

UNICEF’s data showed that 26 new 15-to-19-year-olds become infected with the disease every hour, and 40 percent of those occur outside sub-Saharan Africa. The Associated Press reported that the United States, India, Indonesia and Brazil all had a “worrying rate” of teen infection.

UNICEF called for worldwide solutions that provide early diagnosis for babies (less than half of children are tested before they are two months old, and AIDS progresses quickly in newborns). It also seeks to keep women, children and adolescents treated and improve sex education.

Cuba Eliminates Mother-To-Child HIV Transmission

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that Cuba is the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to child.  The country is also the first to eliminate the transfer of syphilis.

WHO officials say that the discovery means an end to the AIDS epidemic is possible and they expect more nations to seek to reach the status where transmission is eliminated in their country.

“Eliminating transmission of a virus is one of the greatest public health achievements possible,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said in a Tuesday press release. “This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation.”

The WHO defines elimination as reduction to a level that it no longer constitutes a public health problem.  In 2013, only two babies were born in Cuba with HIV and only five with syphilis.

The WHO says that without treatment, a woman has up to a 45% risk of transmitting the virus to her child.  The WHO is currently undergoing a worldwide program to eliminate transmission but are struggling to meet their goal of only 40,000 infections in 2015.  The last reported total was 240,000 in 2013, a decrease of 160,000 from 2009.

New Disease Has AIDS-like Symptoms Without HIV

Researchers are reporting that a new disease is affflicting many in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms despite the patients not being infected with HIV.

The researchers do not believe the disease is infectious but like AIDS leaves the patients with damaged immune systems that leave them vulnerable to germs that an ordinary immune system can fend off. Continue reading →