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According to the WHO, 36.7 million people are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. More than half that number are on life-saving antiretroviral therapy. In what it calls a wake-up call, the WHO says more than 10 percent of people starting antiretroviral therapy in six of the 11 countries surveyed in Africa, Asia and Latin America were resistant to the drugs. It warns this potentially could undermine progress in controlling and reducing the spread of this disease.
A pharmacist dispenses antiretroviral drugs at Mater Hospital in Kenya's capital Nairobi
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of HIV cases and accounts for nearly two-thirds of the global total of new HIV infections; but, the WHO coordinator for HIV treatment and care, Meg Doherty, told VOA other parts of the world, especially eastern Europe and central Asia, have some of the highest incidences of drug resistance. She added some of the higher incidences are in places with the lowest amount of antiretroviral coverage. “So, we know in most of Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, that there is very good and the highest coverage of treatment. So, it is a good news story. But, once we have more people on therapy and more people who are potentially taking drugs that could alter the virus, the risk of this resistance can go up,” Doherty said.
The World Health Organization is issuing new guidelines to help countries address HIV drug resistance. It recommends countries monitor the quality of their treatment programs and as soon as resistance is detected, people should be switched to a different drug treatment regimen. The U.N. agency warns increasing HIV drug resistance could lead to an additional 135,000 deaths and 105,000 new infections in the next five years if no action is taken. It projects the cost of HIV treatment could increase by $650 million during this time.
Growing HIV Drug Resistance Posing Threat to Treatment
AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend. "When you think about the money that's been spent on AIDS, it could have been better," said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London.
She said more resources might have gone to strengthening health systems in poor countries. "The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down," Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the U.N.-funded AIDS programs on their own. The Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut in contributions to the U.N. starting in October.
A mother gets an antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa's largest public hospital, in Soweto
According to the report, about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, compared to 17.1 million the previous year. UNAIDS also said there were about 36.7 million people with HIV in 2016, up slightly from 36.1 million the year before. In the report's introduction, Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS' executive director, said more and more countries are starting treatment as early as possible, in line with scientific findings that the approach keeps people healthy and helps prevent new infections. Studies show that people whose virus is under control are far less likely to pass it on to an uninfected sex partner. "Our quest to end AIDS has only just begun," he wrote.
The report notes that about three-quarters of pregnant women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, now have access to medicines to prevent them from passing it to their babies. It also said five hard-hit African countries now provide lifelong AIDS drugs to 95 percent of pregnant and breast-feeding women with the virus. "For more than 35 years, the world has grappled with an AIDS epidemic that has claimed an estimated 35 million lives," the report said. "Today, the United Nations General Assembly has a shared vision to consign AIDS to the history books." The death toll from AIDS has dropped dramatically in recent years as the wide availability of affordable, life-saving drugs has made the illness a manageable disease.
But Harman said that "Ending AIDS" — the report's title — was unrealistic. "I can see why they do it, because it's bold and no one would ever disagree with the idea of ending AIDS, but I think we should be pragmatic," she said. "I don't think we will ever eliminate AIDS so it's possible this will give people the wrong idea."
For 1st Time, Over Half of People With HIV Taking AIDS Drugs
