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Corona pandemic weakens protection against HIV and AIDS

2020-12-02T00:44:16.985Z


With the right therapy, people infected with HIV can live largely normally. The problem: In many poor countries - and also in Germany - the infection is recognized too late. Corona creates further hurdles.


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AIDS tests in South Africa: fewer AIDS tests are being done in the corona crisis

Photo: Dino Lloyd / Gallo Images / Getty Images

The German Foundation for World Population (DSW) has warned against backward steps in the fight against AIDS because of the corona pandemic: "We must not allow the containment of HIV and AIDS to be sidelined," said DSW managing director Jan Kreutzberg on world AIDS Day on December 1st.

The corona crisis has already noticeably slowed the fight against HIV, especially in countries with low and middle income.

The foundation referred to the example of Uganda, where the number of HIV tests in April fell "by a worrying 40 percent".

In addition, the corona pandemic has exacerbated the inequalities between the sexes: "We are experiencing an increase in gender-based and sexualised violence, an increase in unintended pregnancies and an increase in HIV infections among girls and women," said Kreutzberg.

Even without Corona, young women in parts of Africa south of the Sahara are particularly affected by HIV: Girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were four times more likely to be infected there than their male counterparts.

Fewer tests, fewer drugs

In 2019, 1.7 million people were newly infected with HIV worldwide, two thirds of them (64 percent) in sub-Saharan Africa.

That emerges from the Unaids report of the United Nations.

An estimated twelve million infected people had no access to medication during this period.

The exit restrictions are also responsible for this, which also meant that in many places endangered people could not have themselves tested.

According to the report, there could therefore be almost 300,000 additional HIV infections by the end of 2022, and almost 150,000 additional infected people could die.

According to estimates, around 90,700 people infected with HIV were living in Germany at the end of 2019 - including around 10,800 without knowing about it.

Around 3,100 people were not treated despite being diagnosed with HIV.

96 percent of those infected with HIV receive antiretroviral therapy.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin, it is almost always successful - people are no longer contagious.

The number of new infections in this country rose last year for the first time since 2015, as the RKI reported.

It is estimated that 2,600 people were newly infected with the HI virus, 100 more than in the previous year.

380 infected people died; since the epidemic began in the 1980s, there have been almost 30,000.

The RKI information is based on model calculations, since an HIV infection is often only diagnosed years after the infection.

There must be more test offers and access to therapy must be guaranteed, said RKI President Lothar Wieler.

Around a third of diagnoses were only made when the immune deficiency was advanced, and around 15 percent only when the immune deficiency disease AIDS had fully broken out.

The number of late diagnoses is tragic, said Sven Warminsky from the German Aids Aid.

Doctors must be trained so that they can consider HIV as a cause of the disease more often.

Undiscovered infections in Eastern Europe

In the main group of people affected in Germany, homosexual and bisexual men, the number of new infections stagnated after years of decline.

Increases at a low level were seen in heterosexual transmission and in drug users via syringes.

Across Europe, too, there are more and more people affected who do not know anything about their infection.

More than half of the infections are diagnosed at a late stage, when the immune system has already started to fail, reported the European Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU health authority ECDC.

Four fifths of those newly diagnosed lived in the eastern part of the region.

It comprises 900 million people in 53 countries, including Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan in addition to the EU countries.

According to the World Population Foundation, the corona crisis is "a wake-up call" to governments and civil society to work on making basic health care possible for all and achieving equality.

In order to protect girls and women in particular from HIV infection, preventive measures such as comprehensive sex education, better access to condoms and greater protection against sexual violence are needed.

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he / AFP / dpa

Source: spiegel

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