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Treatments against AIDS Are Being Improved, But Prevention is the Solution

Date: (20/11/2009)

Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas

The prevention keeps being –currently- the only one effective ‘vaccine’ for facing the HIV/AIDS disaster, one of the infectious diseases that affects more than 33 million people in the entire world.

(Photos by Javier Rodriguez Cura)

By Javier Rodriguez Cura

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is one of the pandemics that has caused more deaths in last twenty years.

So, the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon School of Biological Sciences (FCB, Spanish abbreviation) carried out –during November 20th morning- the fifth Informative Forum about the AIDS.

A vast panorama of the status which is depriving the world, Mexico and Nuevo Leon before this disease that has not cure yet, was known in the academic symposium.

During the first academic symposium’s lecture, Lydia Rivera, FCB Laboratory of Immunology and Virology member, showed an X-ray of this disease representing her colleague, Cristina Rodriguez.

The first case of HIV was identified in 1981 in United States of America. A young homosexual man was who was suffering from it. The next year it was defined as the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

The AIDS -after 28 years of being known- is present, according to UNAIDS numbers mentioned by Rivera, there were 33 million people –confirmed- who suffer from this disease in 2007, although this international institution’s calculations predict there are 36 million.

From those 33 million AIDS cases, 30.8 million are adult people, and the half are women. Two million people under 15 years old have been infected by HIV in last three decades.

Currently, AIDS got a new infections average of 7 thousand 400 everyday.

Nationally, there are 130 thousand 969 infections since 1983 until nowadays. There were 983 HIV cases on March, 2009.

Society’s sector with more HIV cases incidence are people who are between 30 and 44 years old as well as people between 15 and 29 years old.

About federal entities, Distrito Federal got 22 thousand 126 cases, Estado de Mexico and Veracruz. Nuevo Leon got the 11th place with one thousand 650 HIV cases.

The most common way of infection -in Mexico- is through sex, 97 percent, heterosexual sexual intercourse with 39.4 percent versus 35.4 percent of homosexual people.

The number of new infections in Mexico peaked in 2002 and 2004.

So, Rivera Morales said we must promote the prevention since elementary school, without waiting for the Government to do it, because from civil society, young people can be educated in order to prevent this disease’s infection.

AIDS IN CHILDREN

HIV infection in children has been stabilized in last years.

That is Gerardo Palacios Saucedos’ diagnosis; Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS, Spanish abbreviation) Medical Unit of High Specialty No. 25 researcher and doctor, who presented ‘AIDS in Pediatrics and Structured Interruptions,’ during this academic symposium of information in FCB.

Palacios Saucedo assured that from 2003 to 2007 –based on showed graphics during his lecture- the number of new cases and deaths in people under 18 years old have been decreased or have been kept the same average level of last years.

We know –in Mexico- according to the National Center for Prevention and Control of AIDS (Censida, Spanish abbreviation) numbers that there are one thousand and 664 infection cases in this population’s sector, and it represents 2.4 percent of total number.

The main HIV transmission way to children is through the vertical transmission in last months of pregnancy and during the labor.

Doctor talked about the highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) which looks for preserving or restoring the immune system as well as extending infected person’s life.

This treatment is for life, and it causes toxicity increase in person’s organism which is exposed to it.

Palacio Saucedo assured that recently studies have concluded that HAART can be used in all children under 12 months old.

He experimented with this treatment’s planned interruption in all studies that he carried out; he found it is benefit for controlling pains caused by the human immunodeficiency virus.

We have to highlight that, according to doctor, it is not a total cure for the disease but it works for easing the pains.

TREATMENTS: ADVANCES BUT EXPENSIVE.

Javier Ramos Jimenez, University Hospital Infectology Service member, said during this forum, there have been evident advances in HIV treatment, but there is still a lot to do.
“Treatments have been simplified in last years. There were 16 pills and they have been reduced considerably.”

All this has saved more than three million people’s lives.

The negative side of current medicine that is affected by HIV-AIDS is medication or tests’ prices.

Some medication’s price is 27 thousand pesos, and others 14 thousand pesos.

Likewise, he said these treatments are for life, what affects –considerably- family’s economy.

He also mentioned international organizations that predict to have 60 million of HIV-AIDS cases for 2015.

That is why he talked about the only one solution.

“The solution is to prevent. It is based in an appropriate prevention program, that informs every society’s sectors, but it requires planning, individualization when the information is promoted, for young people inform other young people and auld people based in other methods as well as reinforce all this,” he said.

The FCB organized Mexican food sale in the corridors in order to support the ‘Casa Simon de Betania,’ which treats people who suffer from HIV-AIDS.