Eduardo Franco, general director of the Venezuelan Network of Positive People, said that the decrease in AIDS mortality was thanks to the donation of medicines by international organizations
The general director of the non-governmental organization Red Venezolana de Gente Positiva, Eduardo Franco, announced on Wednesday, January 4, that mortality from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was reduced by 88% during 2022.
Franco explained that the decrease in the indicator was achieved thanks to the donation of antiretroviral drugs by the United Nations and recalled that the Venezuelan State has not acquired the necessary drugs to care for patients with HIV since 2016.
“We have more than 60,000 people who have benefited from these antiretroviral treatments. We have a death toll of 522 in 2022,” he stated.
He stressed that they have already begun to do paperwork with international bodies such as Unicef, the Pan American Health OrganizationUN AIDS, among others, to request the medicines that are required for the next three years.
*Read also: In which health centers do free rapid HIV and viral load tests?
He took the opportunity to denounce that the laboratories in Venezuela do not have the reagents that allow ruling out whether or not a patient has HIV. He said that they have been able to work with rapid tests that they received through donations and that 90% of the diagnoses made in the country during 2022 were made with these supplies.
It is estimated that 58,000 people with HIV saved their lives thanks to the treatment donated since 2019 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, explained Alberto Nieves, executive director of Citizen Action Against AIDS (Acsi).
Thanks to a donation from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, in less than a year, treatment coverage for HIV patients increased from 16% in 2018 to 40% at the end of 2019.
Tests to monitor the HIV status and immune status of the person living with the virus (such as CD4, CD8, and viral load) can cost more than $150 and should be done, per WHO recommendation, at the least three times a year.
With information from Radio Faith and Joy
Post Views: 7
