In the summer of 2015, I went to a dinner and discovered that there is a plan by the New York State Department of Health to end the epidemic in the state by 2020.
The three-point plan:
Identifies persons with HIV who remain undiagnosed and link them to health care.
Links and retains persons diagnosed with HIV in health care to maximize virus suppression so they remain healthy and prevent further transmission.
*Facilitates access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for high-risk persons to keep them HIV negative.
Implicit in the framework was making sure people were not being shamed into hiding their HIV status, which merely makes it harder to treat.
There was a headline from a couple of months ago that surprised me:
Everyone who has H.I.V. should immediately be put on antiretroviral triple therapy and everyone at risk of becoming infected should be offered protective doses of similar drugs, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday as it issued new H.I.V. treatment and prevention guidelines.
The guidelines increase by nine million the number of people who should get treatment and by untold millions the number who should get protective doses. Previous guidelines recommended them for gay men, prostitutes, people with infected partners and others; the new guidelines effectively bring in millions of women and girls in Africa.
How much that will cost and how it will be paid for are not yet determined.
Advocates around the world welcomed the new guidelines — usually without addressing the cost.
Dr. Mark Dybul, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said the two recommendations were “critically important to moving us toward fast-track treatment and prevention goals.”
This was exciting, though: Truvada Protected 100 Percent Of Study Participants From HIV.
The Centers for Disease Control is planning a National HIV Prevention Conference in December 2015 in Atlanta to “continue refining, improving, and strengthening our nation’s response to HIV.” Because it’s not over yet.
This is hilariously topical for me. I just started a new relationship and I am insisting we both get HIV tested before we get intimate.
I have discovered there is seriously something broken in the system.
First, my doctor acted like there was something weird about the fact that even though I have no serious reason to think I am HIV positive (no history of STIS and no HIV positive partners) I want to get tested anyways.
Then because there’s a policy that I can only get results in person (makes sense) and from a doctor (stupid), even though my results are there I can’t get them until the 15th of December.
I am seriously annoyed. If it’s this complicated and embarrassing for me, what about the 20 year old with multiple partners?
Until there’s an actual cure, early antiretroviral therapy and PrEP are the best weapons we have (together with—not instead of—safer sex). I would bet that with dramatic expansion of both drug therapies, costs would come down, but the money saved in the long rung by keeping people from needing expensive medical treatment, and keeping them working and paying taxes, will almost certainly make it a very sound financial investment.
But the real issue is that if we can prevent suffering, we have a duty to do that, I think.
HIV/AIDS CURED WITH HERBS…
{A bunch of info re a home cure, which I redacted]