How HIV Affects the World, and What We’re Doing About it

While HIV and AIDS are having more of an impact than ever on environmental wellness, the main concern for the diseases still remains for human health and wellbeing. Across the world, AIDS affects the wellness of over 30million people, causing infection, discrimination and death. By the end of 2015, the United Nations hope to achieve certain targets which will help to eliminate this disease from the face of the planet.

 

Target One: To reduce sexual transmission of HIV by 50%.

According to UK research, more and more gay men are getting receptive to the idea of safe sex, and they strongly advocate the use of condoms. This is promising, as is the increasing use of sex education and safe sex awareness programmes in schools, as the majority of HIV-infections occur in young people, sex workers and homosexuals.

 

Target Two: To eliminate vertical transmission of HIV and reduce maternal death by 50%.

To stop mothers passing on HIV to their babies – whether before or after birth – there are more effective antiretroviral medicines being brought out, the practice of caesarean section is being enhanced and HIV-positive women are being educated on the dangers of breastfeeding.

 

Target Three: To completely prevent new HIV infections among drug users.

82 countries have introduced NSPs (Needle and Syringe Programmes), and 70 countries have introduced OST (Opioid Substitution Therapy), to reduce the risk of HIV among drug users.

 

Target Four: To ensure those who can be treated have complete access to antiretroviral therapy (ART).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is providing countries with ongoing guidance, tools and support to make ART available for all HIV-positive people who can be treated. This therapy includes three drugs which helps to suppress the spread of HIV.

 

Target Five: To cut TB deaths among HIV sufferers by half.

As WHO and its partners work together to advocate joint TB/HIV prevention, policy development and implementation in various countries, the health organisation recommends 12 different TB/HIV collaborative activities, and provides a number of tools and guidelines for their implementation.

 

Target Six: To reduce discrimination.

Discrimination causes sufferers not to seek help, and can lead to depression and even suicide. Therefore, laws are being released in order to promote the policies which ensure the full realisation of human rights and fundamental freedom.

Categories: drug users, health organisation, HIV, hiv infections, HIV Positive, nbsp, nbsp target, reduction, safe sex, target, Targets, tb hiv

Is HIV Making You Miss Out on a Natural Delivery?

When your wellness is affected by HIV, it’s more than just a matter of your sexual health. If you have children, their well-being is at risk of the infection, which is why elective caesarean section delivery (a caesarean performed before the onset of labour) has been recommended for HIV-positive women since 1999. However, though this measure has been shown to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, a new study, published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency, asserts that there are “missed opportunities” for HIV-positive pregnant women with a suppressed viral load to give birth vaginally.

 

In Europe, it is recommended, or permissible, for you to deliver vaginally if you have an undetectable or very low viral load, but, according to the investigators, more than a third of women with viral suppression and no contraindications still have a caesarean section. The study authors commented, ‘Rates of vaginal deliveries were lower than expected. Our results suggest that the policy for vaginal delivery among women among women with undetectable or very low VL [viral load] is only slowly becoming established within practice over time.’

 

Across Europe, rates of mother-to-child transmission have declined dramatically, reaching rates of below 1%. This is thanks to the widespread use of combination anti-retroviral therapy, rather than the common practice of elective caesarean section. Wellness experts have questioned the additional benefits of delivering via caesarean, with particular regard to the risks of the procedure itself. As guidelines across Europe for the management of HIV infection during pregnancy have been changed over the past decade, the study researchers wanted to investigate whether or not this had had an impact on low viral-load women giving birth vaginally.

 

For the study, the researchers examined data collected between 2000 and 2010 in two studies (the European Collaborative Study and the Swiss Mother and Child HIV Cohort Study).  They looked at data on 3013 deliveries to 2663 women, and found that, after the guideline changes, caesarean section was the mode of delivery for 55% of women with an undetectable viral load. The study authors concluded, ‘Rates of vaginal delivery in HIV-positive pregnant women are increasing for women with suppressed VL. Despite this, there is evidence of missed opportunities for viral suppression and for having a vaginal delivery in women with a suppressed viral load.’

Categories: birth vaginally, caesarean section, child transmission, HIV, HIV Positive, Natural Delivery, Research, study authors, suppressed viral, vaginal delivery, vaginally nbsp, viral load

Are a Significant Number of HIV Cases Going Unreported?

When HIV positive patients turn up at sexual health clinics, a significant proportion of those whose wellbeing is affected by the infection are not reporting it to NHS staff members. This is according to preliminary research published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, which, if reflective of a national trend, could indicate the true prevalence of undiagnosed HIV infection in the UK.

In this country, it’s currently estimated that one in four people’s wellness is affected by HIV without their knowledge.  Experts base this estimate on several sources of data, including the GUMAnon Survey, which examines blood samples taken from patients to test for syphilis at one of 16 participating sexual health clinics across the UK, to look for signs of HIV. It is believed that even when people do know they are HIV positive, a proportion still do not to reveal it to NHS staff when attending for services elsewhere, hence the researchers investigated whether or not this was the case.

The researchers looked for the presence of very low viral loads – very low amounts of circulating virus, and a hallmark of successful drug treatments – and various antiretroviral drugs in all HIV positive samples from one participating GUMAnon clinic in London in 2009. 28 of the 130 samples which matched clinic records were from patients who were not known to be HIV positive before their arrival at clinic, ten of whom where then tested at their clinic visit. 72% of the remaining 18 ‘undiagnosed’ patients had very low viral loads, indicative of successful drug treatment.

According to the study’s authors, ‘This is the first published objective evidence that non-disclosure of HIV status as a phenomenon exists in patients attending [sexual health] clinics in the UK. Given the high proportion of individuals classified within this study as [non-disclosing], the extent to which these findings can be extrapolated to other clinics, and the degree to which they may influence estimates of the proportion of undiagnosed HIV in the community, warrants further study.’

Lead author Dr Ann Sullivan, of London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, explained in an accompanying podcast that as HIV positive patients can attend many different sexual health clinics in London, it’s easier for them to keep quiet about their infection than in other parts of the country. They may not want to be ‘judged’, she suggested, because coming to a clinic with another infection means they may have indulged in risky sexual behaviour. However, Dr Sullivan added that these people could be putting their wellbeing at risk by not revealing their HIV status.

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Are a Significant Number of HIV Cases Going Unreported?

Categories: HIV Positive, NHS, Unreported