Antiretroviral drugs in HIV therapy

HIV risk in Africa: Antiretroviral drugs help with HIV therapy

09/23/2013

In recent years, the number of new HIV infections and the number of people dying from AIDS has been steadily declining. However, the program against AIDS (Unaids) launched by the UN warns in its recently published report not to become negligent in dealing with the risk of contracting HIV.

In 2012, about 35.3 million people worldwide were living with the virus. The trend is going down. 2.3 million people were newly infected with HIV last year, 70 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. 2.5 million had newly infected in 2011. In Switzerland, on the other hand, the number of new cases has risen again by 15 percent after three years of decline. In 2012, 645 new infections were registered. A year earlier, there were only 562. Looking at the period from 2001, the number of HIV infections has fallen by one third, according to Unaids. The number of people who died in 2012 is estimated at 1.6 million, a decrease of one third from 2001.

It is pleasing that, above all, the number of children with HIV infection continues to decline, said Unaids director Michel Sidibé. Last year, 260 000 children were re-infected. That is 35 percent less than in 2009 and 52 percent less than in 2001.

This is mainly due to the use of antiretroviral drugs, which were increasingly given to pregnant women in order to prevent contagion of children before and at birth. In some African countries, some of them even came to spectacular successes. In Ghana, for example, the number of pregnant women treated increased from 32 percent in 2009 to 90 percent in 2012.

9.7 million people from developing countries received end-of-year antiretroviral drugs, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. In addition, treatment with these drugs not only reduces contagion in AIDS-related illnesses and deaths, but also significantly shortens the onset of tuberculosis, writes Unaids.

By 2015, it would be possible to treat 15 million people with antiretroviral drugs, said Sidibé. This is even more than planned. According to data, 22 to 24 billion dollars a year are needed per year, according to Unaids. In 2012, on the international level, however, only 18.9 billion dollars were made available. There is a need for action here in the future, if you do not want to jeopardize the successes. (Fr)