World AIDS Day, celebrated on December 1st each year, is an opportunity to fight HIV and show support to people living with the virus. An estimated 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV. Although the virus has been identified only in 1984, more than 35 million people died of AIDS, which characterizes it as the most destructive pandemic in history.
Currently, significant advances have been made in the treatment of HIV, there are laws to protect people living with the virus and we do know a lot more about the disease. Despite this, 2 million people are diagnosed with the virus every year worldwide. In 2014 1.2 million people died from the disease, of which 150,000 were children under 15 years old.
The 2015 campaign focuses on the change of attitude towards HIV and AIDS. Prejudice and ignorance do not help patients with the disease and do not prevent new infections, on the opposite. The campaign discloses, for example, that kisses and hugs not spread the virus, but ignorance, yes. The only forms of transmission are through unprotected sex (95%), through sharing of needle, receiving contaminated blood transfusion or mother to child transmission.
In the last five years, thanks to the improvement of antiretroviral treatment, the number of children infected by vertical transmission in low- and middle-income was reduced by 40%. About 67% of mothers infected in 2013 received antiretroviral treatment in these countries. The global average is 73%. At this rate, it is feasible to affirm that vertical transmission can be eliminated in some countries such as the UK, where only 0.5% of HIV-positive mothers transmit the virus to their children.
Scientific and technical literature
BIREME/PAHO/WHO recommends access to documents and sources of scientific and technical information in the Virtual Health Library (VHL) related to the World AIDS day 2015.
Links of interest
PAHO Health Topics – HIV and STD
Department of STD, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis – Secretary of health Surveillance, Ministry of Health of Brazil (in Portuguese)
VHL Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (in Portuguese)
