1 December 2017

Dec 01, 2017

World AIDS Day 2017

Dear aidsfocus readers,

“My main job is having AIDS!” – today this no longer needs to be said by anybody receiving adequate treatment for the disease. The quote comes from the award-winning French film “BPM (Beats Per Minute)” which arrives in German-speaking cinemas today in time for World AIDS Day 2017. The drama shows how, in the Paris of the early nineties, gay men and lesbians from the “ACT UP” anti-AIDS group attacked pharmaceutical companies delaying research into AIDS medication. The activists were HIV-positive and were sounding the alarm because their time was running out. “ACT UP” mobilised against society’s silence, lobbied for prevention and against the stigmatisation of the disease as the “gay plague”.

Today, 25 years later, there is still no cure for AIDS in sight and stigmatisation also remains. But many things have changed. Thanks to the medication, infected people can lead a largely ‘normal’ life. This is proven by several studies of current treatment outcomes which are being celebrated as the most convincing advances in recent years: people in whose blood the HIV virus is no longer detectable due to treatment with antiretroviral drugs are also no longer sexually contagious. This is not fundamentally new but the studies are now showing for the first time that there has also not been any sexual transmission among the so-called ‘risk groups’. There has not been one single case of contagion! (“U=U”: Undetectable=Untransmittable). This is a strong signal to the general public in the fight against stigmatisation and an emotional release for anyone living until now with the fear that they pose a risk.

However: the challenge remains! This success story applies only to those in treatment – which is currently almost 21 million people. But it does not apply to the around 16 million infected people who are not receiving treatment, nor to the about 2 million who are newly infected each year. We know the numbers: UNAIDS has set the goal that by 2020 around 90% of HIV-positive people, that is around 32 million, are receiving treatment. Huge additional efforts are therefore necessary: the often invisible, so-called risk groups who receive too little attention from the programmes, such as young women and girls in many African countries, sex-workers, drug-users and homosexuals in particular, must be reached.

The director of the film “BPM (Beats Per Minute)”, Robin Campillo, neatly sums it up: “I have the impression that to date our governments – in spite of all the advances in AIDS therapy – are not doing enough to identify and protect the newly infected. We cannot stop campaigning and we must promote education about the disease pragmatically rather than moralistically” (ARD: Im Kampf gegen Aids).

It holds true even on today’s World AIDS Day 2017, around 35 years after the outbreak of the epidemic: HIV/AIDS is not a minority problem but something that affects us all. Let’s take the right to health for ALL seriously! ACT UP NOW!

Mira Gardi, MMS intern and project leader, has examined the situation of young female sex workers in India with UNAIDS India as part of her master thesis (Master of Science in Global Health). Read about her interesting findings in our Topic of the Month.

Martina Staenke
Communication Manager, Medicus Mundi Switzerland
mstaenke@medicusmundi.ch