Experts fear that "exaggerated optimism" lowers the guard against AIDS

Experts and activists will meet Monday in Amsterdam to strengthen the fight against AIDS, fearing that exaggerated optimism will lower the guard and degenerate into a new epidemic.

And in some countries the number of infections with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has increased, coinciding with the fact that the world has reduced the AIDS alert and reduced its contributions according to representatives of the fight against AIDS.

Moreover, having focused his efforts on the development of a cure that cures AIDS, he has left out basic prevention, they explain.

The reduction of new infections worldwide over the last decade has encouraged some to declare that we are one step away from the elimination of AIDS, "says Peter Piot, veteran researcher of the virus and founder of the 39, UNAIDS agency.

But "there is no data to support this conclusion", says Piot, who considers that this argument has engendered a "dangerous complacency".

CHARLIZE THERON AND CONCHITA WURST

With celebrities such as actress Charlize Theron, Prince Henry of England and singers Elton John and Conchita Wurst, plus 15,000 delegates will attend the five-day international AIDS conference in Amsterdam.

For their part, scientists will badyze recent progress to obtain a more effective and simpler medicine against the virus.

More than three decades of research have not allowed for the moment to reach cure or vaccine against the virus, which infected nearly 80 million people and caused the death of 35 million since the beginning of the epidemic in the early 1980s.

A UNAIDS report released this week noted that 36, 9 million people were carrying the virus in 2017, which, thanks antiretroviral therapy (ART), does not involve a death sentence.

He also reported the minor n. the annual number of deaths in two decades (940,000) and a record number of people accessing treatment (21.7 million).

But he also indicated that infections are increasing in 50 countries, more than double in Eastern Europe and Asia. Central

President of the International AIDS Society (IAS), Linda-Gail Bekker, told AFP that "AIDS gurus could have made a strategic mistake", prioritizing treatment . at the expense of prevention, the only way to stop the outbreak while a vaccine is not achieved.

Bekker emphasized the importance of using condoms, the use of antiretrovirals as protection against infections and the provision of safe syringes.

INSUFFICIENT FINANCING

To do this, and to offer treatment to 15.2 million HIV-positive people who do not have access, the battle requires funding.

However, the administration of Donald Trump plans to reduce the participation of the United States, up to now the largest contributor by far.

A report from UNAIDS and the Kaiser Family Foundation highlighted this week that after two years of decline, government donations to AIDS programs in low- and middle-income countries rose 16% to $ 8.1 billion last year.

But the study noted that the trend "will not last", since this extra money came mainly from US government funds, which had already been allocated but not used in previous years.

Donor government funding "will surely fall," according to the UNAIDS report. An additional $ 7 billion a year is needed to achieve the UN's goal of ending AIDS as a threat to public health by 2030.

The News AIDS-related infections and deaths are expected to be reduced by 90% compared to 2010.

Bekker fears that "people have abandoned the struggle too soon"

"By the time we stop looking, the infections they are going to increase again and we will see (the epidemic) bounce back, "he warned.