“Time to put the search for a cure for HIV on the political agenda”

Grandstand. On the eve of World AIDS Day, with global attention focused on Covid-19, we remember another pandemic of animal origin. More than 77 million people have been infected with HIV around the world since the start of this epidemic and, despite the remarkable progress made, the AIDS virus is responsible for over 35 million deaths, including 690,000 in 2019.

With two-thirds of new infections and deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations Joint Program on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS) is concerned, in a report published on November 27, about the significant decline in the use of antiretroviral therapy. and its start, including in South Africa, where the largest population of people living with HIV is found, due to the health crisis due to Covid-19, endangering the progress made over the past decade (see link PDF).

Science and activism

UNAIDS estimates that the Covid-19 epidemic could cause between 123,000 and 293,000 new infections and between 69,000 and 148,000 additional deaths related to HIV / AIDS. The National AIDS Council has just warned of the decline of 650,000 HIV screening tests and the provision of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) from March to September 2020 in France. It also recalls the worsening of the situation of the populations most exposed to HIV during this health crisis.

The Covid-19 pandemic reminds everyone that HIV has taught us to work with and for affected communities, to invest in agile and resilient health systems, but also in science from which the effectiveness of the response.

The activism of science and civil society has been and must remain the basis of an unprecedented global response.

In 2002, the international community came together to create the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFSTP). Then, in 2005, President George W. Bush launched the Presidential Emergency Plan to Fight AIDS (Pepfar), which has enjoyed strong bipartisan support from the Congress of States for more than fifteen years. United. Together, these two initiatives have helped save the lives of over 20 million people living with HIV.

Equally important was the creation in 2006 of Unitaid, an international organization under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), responsible for centralizing the procurement of medicines in order to obtain the best possible prices and accelerate access. and the delivery of quality care and diagnostic tests for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in the most affected countries.

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