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The message of the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam is clear: the fight against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a question of political will
That prevents clarification and prevention, which defends family values but delivers the plight of infected women and children who marginalize drug users, turn gay men into scapegoats, block progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and become guilty.
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And progress in this struggle is enormous. They show that it is possible to lead a decent life with the disease. They show that the spread of the epidemic has slowed down thanks to a combination of enlightenment, medical progress, global solidarity and responsible health policy. They show that the fear of death has diminished and that AIDS is increasingly a chronic disease, which is also true for poor countries.
The fight against AIDS is therefore a great success. In figures: Last year, 22 million of the 37 million HIV-positive people in the world were treated with drugs. Of these, 4 million live in South Africa, the country with the largest number of HIV programs run by the state. The positive results are evident especially in Botswana, the country with the second largest spread of HIV (17% of the population).
Positive results are evident especially in Botswana. Between 2010 and 2017, the percentage of patients on antiretrovirals increased from 50% to 84%. As a result, the number of deaths per year has risen from 18,000 in 2003 to 4,000 in 2017.
In light of this positive badessment, attention is drawn to developments in Eastern Europe and in Central Asia. In these regions, a deadly combination of ignorance, religious beliefs, tradition, taboos, discrimination and political irresponsibility threatens to undermine progress.
The situation is particularly dramatic in Russia where, according to UNAIDS,. The annual number of new infections has increased from 50,000 in 2004 to 100,000 in 2017. Only 360,000 people have access to treatment.
This negative spiral in Russia is fueled, among other factors, by the disregard of international standards to cope with HIV and AIDS, hard won. There, where religious leaders call "divine chastisement" and where nationalist politicians claim to "protect families," women die after being infected by their husbands, and children come into the world with the potentially lethal virus, even when they are dead. It is possible to avoid transmission
When human life is worth little, the treatment of AIDS carriers is not a priority. Why invest in the public health system if AIDS continues to be perceived as a "plague of homobaduals" (an expression used by the German magazine Der Spiegel in a cover in 1983)?
When it comes to AIDS, the time has come for the truth: why settle for school and collect donations if it is the fault of the sick? The way to cope with the epidemic reveals not only the degree of competence and humanity of political and religious leaders: it reveals the human face – or inhuman – of a whole society.
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