HIV epidemics may make Aids unbeatable

published on November 4, 2013 in Health24

HIV epidemics are becoming more concentrated in marginalised groups which could hamper efforts to combat Aids.

HIV epidemics are becoming more concentrated in marginalised groups such as sex workers, drug users and gay men, and could defy global attempts to combat Aids if attitudes do not change, a UN expert said.

Michel Kazatchkine, UN Special Envoy for HIV/Aids in Eastern Europe, says he would like to be able to celebrate without reservation global progress made in the past decade, but stubborn infection rates and alarming growth of outbreaks in hard-to-reach populations make that difficult.

The risk, he says, is that as the world turns the tide of the global Aids pandemic, the virus will return to being a disease that plagues only certain groups and the political will to overcome it may fade.

"If we do not address the roots of the problem, if we do not address stigma, discrimination and inappropriate legislation, if we don't look at these people from a public health perspective, rather than from a delinquent, criminal perspective as we do now, then the trend will only go on," he said.

"Then the Aids epidemic will become more and more a sum of these concentrated epidemics."

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© Copyright BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
St. Paul's Hospital 608–1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-8477 | Fax: 604-806-9044
General inquiries: info@bccfe.ca
Media inquiries: communications@bccfe.ca
(Please do not use any of these email addresses to send personal information or book an appointment. To book appointments or contact the H2H clinic, please call 604-416-1517 or fax: 604-564-4893. Do not send your or your client's personal information via email.)

Our work serves clients and communities across British Columbia on lands and waters cared for and nurtured by the many distinct First Nations across the province. The BC-CfE humbly and gratefully acknowledge the stewards of these lands, particularly the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) on whose unceded, traditional and ancestral territories our offices are located.