This reality is in sharp contrast to what scientific evidence has strongly supported for some years: Immediate access to HIV treatment significantly improves the health of people living with the virus, and works as one of the most effective tools to prevent HIV transmission.
The latest UNAIDS report also estimates that new HIV infections have fallen by 35 percent since HIV incidence peaked in 2000. “‘We need to do it just one more time to break the AIDS epidemic and keep it from rebounding”…” “Currently, they have over three million people on drugs”, he said at a press conference to commence this year’s World AIDS Day in Abuja.
Dr. Julio Montaner, the director of British Columbia’s Centre for Excellence in HIV and AIDS, says that in B.C. alone, 2,000 out of the 15,000 people with HIV/AIDS don’t even know they’re infected and so are more likely to spread the virus.
World Aids Day, the campaign aimed at uniting people around the globe in the fight against the disease, raising awareness and reducing stigma, is next week on December 1.
In Asia, only two countries have more than half of their HIV positive population on ARVs, and AIDs related deaths have increased by 11% since 2000. “People living with HIV on treatment are highly unlikely to develop serious complications and Aids-related illnesses, and their life expectancy is the same as anyone else’s”.
Also, in sub-Saharan Africa, where 70% of people with HIV live, an estimated 49% of adults do not know their HIV status, approximately 57% living with HIV are not receiving antiretroviral therapy and an estimated 68% are not virally suppressed.