‘Scales have tipped’ in battle with AIDS
Print Edition
AIDS claimed a million lives in 2016, almost half the 2005 toll that marked the peak of the deadly epidemic, a UN report said yesterday, proclaiming “the scales have tipped.”
Not only are new HIV infections and deaths declining, but more people than ever are on life-saving treatment, according to data published ahead of an AIDS science conference opening in Paris on Sunday.
Experts warned, however, that much of the progress can be undone by growing resistance to HIV drugs.
Unless something is done, drug-resistant strains may infect an extra 105,000 people and kill 135,000 over the next five years, and boost treatment costs by US$650 million, the World Health Organization said.
According to a UNAIDS global roundup, 19.5 million of 36.7 million people living with HIV in 2016 had access to treatment.
This marked the first time that more than half of infected people were receiving anti-retroviral treatment, which rolls back the AIDS virus but does not eliminate it.
“We could get 2.4 million new people on treatment” in 2016, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe told journalists in Paris. “We are saving lives.”
The report said AIDS-related deaths have fallen from 1.9 million in 2005 to a million in 2016, adding that “for the first time the scales have tipped.”
Last year saw 1.8 million new infections, almost half the record number of some 3.5 million in 1997, UNAIDS said.
In total, 76.1 million people have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, since the epidemic started in the 1980s. Some 35 million people have died.
“Communities and families are thriving as AIDS is being pushed back,” said Sidibe. “As we bring the epidemic under control, health outcomes are improving and nations are becoming stronger.”
As yet, there is no HIV vaccine or cure, and infected people rely on lifelong anti-retroviral therapy to stop the virus replicating.
Without treatment, HIV-infected people go on to develop AIDS, a syndrome that weakens the immune system and leaves the body exposed to opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis, and some cancers.
Most progress has been made in east and south Africa, the region hardest hit by the epidemic. Since 2010, AIDS-related deaths there declined by 42 percent.
Sixty percent of all people who receive anti-retroviral therapy live in east and south Africa which, along with west and central Europe and the Americas, is on target to meet the 90-90-90 targets set by the UN, said the report.
By 2020, 90 percent of infected people must know their status, of whom 90 percent must be on treatment. In 90 percent of those, the virus will be “suppressed” by medicine to the extent it cannot function or replicate.
By 2016, 70 percent of infected people knew their status. Of those, 77 percent were on treatment, and 82 percent had virus suppression.
UNAIDS expressed concern about two regions with worsening AIDS trends — the Middle East-north Africa, and east Europe-central Asia.
Both are areas marred by conflict and political uncertainty, and where stigma helps to drive HIV infection underground.
New HIV infections rose by 60 percent in east Europe and central Asia, and deaths by almost a third from 2010 to 2016.
In the Middle East and north Africa, the number of AIDS deaths increased by a fifth in the last six years.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
