"The Church can help fight AIDS"

published on May 3, 2015 in INFO News

The only thing that matters is to fight against HIV, and more people participate in this crusade, better, is the only thing that I care and I am convinced we can achieve this." With these words, the infectious disease specialist Argentine Julio Montaner began the telephone conversation which joined the London Airport with the drafting of Tiempo Argentinofor several minutes. The doctor lives in Canada for more than 20 years and is recognized throughout the world for being one of the specialists who 19 years ago developed the antiretroviral therapy of high efficiency (the MMR is the greatest therapeutic discovery which has been made so far to fight AIDS) that stopped the progression of the infection by HIV to AIDS and premature death.

In March, the expert visited the Francisco Pope, in the Vatican. For the first time in many years, the Holy See received the health proposal for ending this disease of the last century and the direction of health and hygiene (the equivalent of a Ministry of health) agreed to include it in his work on health.

"I feel very proud and happy with the work that is underway. "In addition, the country was the first to formally adopt the strategy 90-90 - 90 over the past year".

The strategy carried out by Montaner from years ago is called 90-90 - 90 and corresponds to one of the Millennium development goals of the international agency UNAIDS, which provides that, for 2020, it should be reached 90% of diagnosed cases, 90% of those infected should receive antiretroviral therapy and 90% of patients on treatment should achieve viral loss. In addition, the expert showed that antiretroviral HIV treatment is also effective to prevent its transmission to verify that, despite the increase in sexual risk behaviour among HIV-infected persons, the rate of new infections among patients treated with ARV drugs continued to decline. In 2012, the World Health Organization (who) endorsed the strategy suggested in 2006 by Julio Montaner of considering that antiretroviral therapy also allows to reduce the chances of transmission of the virus to other people.

-What motivated her visit to father Francisco?

-More than one year ago UNAIDS me appointed as Special Adviser to antiretroviral therapy to help them incorporate the treatment of morbidity, mortality, and transmission as a cornerstone for the global strategy to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Church possesses an exceptional insight into poor countries. Francisco received us with open arms and congratulated us for the work we have been doing. We talked about the strategy 90-90 - 90 that take place at global level, would make the disease endemic and sporadic. We declare to you what we are doing and their reaction was very positive. Even among the objectives of the Vatican figure the for a field study in Tanzania for the use of the treatments preventively. The idea is that the strategy will become global and the Church can be a good opportunity to get impact. This study a lot will also help because it will give us one much larger scale to which had been driving.

-Do you think the Church should review its position on the use of condoms?

-Today should focus on that we agree on fight with disease, Diagnostics, treatments and loss. It is clear that the use of condoms continues to be of great importance as a preventive method.

-What about the strategy to deal with the disease in the Argentina?

-I am very proud and happy with the work that is underway. In addition, the country was the first to formally adopt the strategy 90-90 - 90 over the past year. This strategy proposes to also go to search cases since, even though we have the treatments available for all patients, the biggest problem is that there are still many people who do not know they are infected. Once is a comprehensive survey of the cases and is guaranteed good treatment, we can begin to talk about eradicating the virus permanently. This translates into active health system engagement and I have the best references of the work in the Argentina. With the medication available currently in the Argentina, we can control the epidemic and set an example to Latin America of how this can be done.

Currently, Montaner is director of the Centre for excellence in HIV/AIDS of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where it is based from 1981. His wife and five children are Canadian, and not imagine your life out of the north country, it says that "the Argentina is constantly on my mind and heart. "I feel that all the work I do in Canada, I also do for Argentina, and ultimately for the world", says with proud.

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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"The Church can help fight AIDS"

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