Death sentence or thing of the past?
With the current medication on the market, HIV positive people have more and more chances of living a better and healthier life than what used to be the case 25 years ago. As most of those infected by the virus have access to antiretroviral drugs (a group of medication that are designed to fight the virus and stopping it from multiplying), they can lead a normal life in most cases as a result. It has been proven that starting to receive treatments as soon as there has been an early diagnosis can prevent radical damage to someone’s system.
So over the past years tremendous progress has been made to improve HIV positive people’s lives.However, despite the fact that scientists continue to dig further in their research for a cure, Dr Mario Longondgo, an emergency medice registrar from London, warns that medically speaking there are still others unknown facts about HIV.
“It’s a very dynamic area of research. If we look back twenty years ago, we didn’t know much, but today we’ve got a whole array of antiretrovirals.
“For example, recently we’ve had a case in Germany whereby someone who’s had HIV for a long time and who had a bone transplant, was then found later on that he was completely negative. So there are still a few facts we don’t know about. But the future is bright,” said Dr Longondgo.
Still, to this day, the story is not the same in poorest countries from around the globe.
Veronica Oakeshott, the policy adviser of the All-Party Parliament Group (APPG) on AIDS, said that although the UK has performed well by providing HIV drug treatments to its population, it is a shame to hear other nations’ outcry from a distance.
“It’s a scandal that there are large parts of the world where HIV is still a death sentence. I think that the UK and other developed countries need to combine forces to do as much as they can to improve access to treatments. And that involves having a real focus and really remembering that this isn’t a crisis that is over and that there are people dying every day,” said Ms Oakeshott.