160,000 new diagnoses of HIV infection in Europe in 2017



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Even though it is growing at a slower pace than before, the number of new HIV infections in Europe remains alarming, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the region and the European Center for Health. control and prevention of diseases. In 2017, the Old Continent recorded 160,000 new infections, of which only 130,000 for the countries located in its eastern part.

The news is better if we look at the side of the euro area or even the European Union, in which a 20% drop in infections has been noted since 2015 among homobadual men. " It's hard to talk about good news as it's a new year marked by an unacceptably high number of people infected with HIV Says Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Director for Europe. " If efforts to prevent new infections are gradually showing positive signs, we are not able to meet our 90-90-90 targets for 2020 "(90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of all HIV-infected people screened are receiving a sustainable anti-retroviral treatment, 90% of people receiving antiretroviral therapy have a sustainably suppressed viral load, Ed) .

" Despite our best efforts, HIV damages the lives of so many people, and causes not only suffering and sickness, but also discrimination and stigma ", Summarizes the European Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis. He believes that in order to meet the goal of sustainable development of HIV eradication in the world by 2030, strengthen our collaboration with non-European countries. " We must fight the stigma of HIV and its treatment and maintain our efforts to fight against false beliefs about the spread of the virus. It is also important for our public health services to allow easy and affordable access to testing and medical care for groups at increased risk of infection. As in the European Union in general, the number of new infections is decreasing in Belgium. According to Sciensano, it has decreased by 2% from 2016 to 2017 and 27.5% since 2012.

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