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More money, more prevention and less repression for the population at risk: these messages will be insistently repeated this Monday in Amsterdam at the International AIDS Conference to avoid a rebound of this epidemic, which brought about 35 million
] Currently, 36.9 million people are living with HIV, hoping that it will not worsen by becoming AIDS. Nearly three out of five are on antiretroviral therapy to avoid it, the highest proportion ever achieved.
The number of infections is reduced and, for the first time since the turn of the century, total annual deaths were less than one million in 2016 (990,000) and again in 2017 (940,000).
But paradoxically, these advances lead to a relaxation of prevention, which, combined with a reduction in international funding, raises fears of a rebound in the epidemic.
"The last time I spoke here in 1992, I could not imagine coming back 26 years later, alive and well," said David Barr, an American HIV-positive activist, at the time. A symposium held the day before the conference, 19659004] But this success is "incredibly fragile," he warns, fearing a return to "the horror of 1992," when there was a wave of riots. Infections and deaths.
One of the main concerns is the funding issue. "We will have problems if we do not have more money," said US researcher Mark Dybul , former director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS.
But the UN agency for the fight against AIDS estimates that it is missing $ 7 billion a year for this disease to cease to be a threat to global public health. 39, here 2030.
This is why associations lobby international decision-makers to prioritize harm reduction programs, for example by providing sterile syringes.
The war on drugs is "the best ally of HIV epidemics and viral hepatitis". "leads to a real health catastrophe," denounces Coalition PLUS
Source: AFP
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