2 december 2015

The first day of the month of December is the international day of action against AIDS and despite the researches in that field have radically progressed in the last thirty years, in our country ten cases per day are being diagnosed. The propagation of AIDS has decreased by 35% in the last years and the mortality rate has descended by 42%. Nevertheless, there is a lot to do to stop this disease.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (ONUADIS) confirmed that 15,8 millions of people receive the treatment against AIDS: this quantity doubles that from five years ago. This number is related to the drop in mortality by 42%, that is, the number of infections is rising but the disease is not as lethal as ten years ago, when the historical record of deaths was set.

The number of people that have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is currently of 36,9 millions and the researches of the last years have focused on the anti-viral medications.  Its last application is the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which consists of applying this medication to patients that are expected to be exposed to AIDS, but still have not contracted it. Is a new medicine that has provided very good results in the last ten years of research and that is expected to take part in the general treatment against AIDS in a period of two years.

This medication consists of one pill of Truvada per day. In Europe has only been tested in France, where it has just been accepted as medicine. In the old continent there is no estimation on its cost but, for the moment, in USA the pills are of hospital grade and the people who receive it do not have to pay for it. The use of this medicine could result highly effective in cases in which a person has a partner with HIV.

Raphael Landovitz is expert in the research against AIDS and during these days he attends to the Gesida Congress (AIDS Study Group), which will develop from 1 to 4 December in the capital. One of the main objectives of the Congress is giving visibility to the Truvada medicine and that Spain accepts its use as anti-viral medication.

This Congress emphasises other aspects of AIDS in our country: there are around 3,000 new infections per year and nearly all the people diagnosed with HIV are treated.

The biggest problem that Spain faces is the late diagnosis: in 46% of the cases the HIV infection and the development of AIDS are detected at the same time because the virus is in an advanced stage and starts to deteriorate the immune system.