| World AIDS Day is an opportunity to show support for people living with HIV and AIDS and to commemorate those we have sadly lost. The National AIDS Trust have launched their 2025 campaign for donations to ensure people living with HIV have the health, dignity & equality they deserve.
This World AIDS Day, along with Michelle Visage, Layton Williams, Charity Kase and Dr Ronx, they're asking you to help end new HIV cases by 2030.
You can play your part by raising awareness or donating to help them achieve this aim.
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CONDOMS AND COCKTAILSDuring the course of the AIDS epidemic unprecedented scientific advancements have been made. The first major medical breakthrough occurred in 1986 with the arrival of the antiretroviral, AZT. But eventually, AZT was found to have a limited effectiveness. More successful treatments, however, (guarding against opportunistic infections common among AIDS patients, such as pneumocystis pneumonia) were gradually developed and released. And with encouraging results.It was the advent of combination therapy in 1996 that really began to have a visible effect on rates of death and illness amongst HIV positive people. Now there's an even better treatment available in the UK with the advent of HIV injectable antiretroviral drugs Cabotegravir and Rilpivirine. Having to take tablets every day can be physically, emotionally and socially burdensome for some people. This new treatment offers hope to thousands of people strugging with the side-effects of a daily pill regime. | |
| As the effects of the combination drugs gradually began to kick in, the number of UK AIDS cases decreased dramatically. Since 1994, when AIDS cases hit a peak with 1,840 diagnosis, new cases of AIDS fell by 70%, dropping to 597 in 1999. |
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But while the instances of AIDS may have fallen, along with mortality rates
(a recent report showed that AIDS death rates in Europe had fallen by 80 percent),
the rates of HIV infection have continued to increase.
There are, on average, 2,500 new diagnosis of HIV in the UK every year - that's equivalent to seven cases a day. Of all new cases, 60 percent are among gay men. And studies indicate that unsafe sex is, worryingly, on the increase. Recent years have seen an explosion of STDs (UK cases of gonorrhoea rose by 30 percent last year). Another study shows that there is a general misunderstanding about HIV drugs. | |
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A survey by the Health Education Authority found that one in six young people
(16-24) believe that HIV treatments can stop the virus being transmitted.
Meanwhile, a MORI poll for the Terence Higgins Trust published in April last year,
showed that
20 percent of people thought there was now a cure for AIDS.
But there is no cure. And combination therapy is far from being an AIDS elixir. The regimen is rigid. It involves necking up to 15 pills a day at precise intervals. |
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For the treatment to be effective, patients must be 100 percent compliant.
Even missing just a couple of doses a month can provide the forever varying HIV virus
with a window in which to multiply and mutate.
In addition, there are various unpleasant side effects that accompany combination therapy. These range from short-term side effects (nausea, diarrhoea, fatigue, skin rashes and lypodystrophy - a misplacement of body fat) to longer-term damage (kidney and heart failure). For some, the drugs are simply too toxic to tolerate. While for many positive people the drugs have unarguably lengthened life spans by postponing progression toward AIDS, how long that resistance against the disease can be maintained is unclear. Once the HIV virus has built up a resistance to a particular drug, that avenue of combination treatment becomes a cul-de-sac. We encourage everyone to donate to the National AIDS Trust (NAT) to help end new HIV transmissions by 2030, secure health, dignity, and equality for people living with HIV, and to help them combat stigma and discrimination through advocacy, research, and public policy. Donations provide vital funding for NAT's work to transform society's response to HIV in the UK, ensuring that everyone living with, and at risk of, HIV can live fulfilling lives.
See OutUK's OutReach for a full listing of HIV and AIDS resources and advice organisationsVisit the National AIDS Trust Website for details of this year's campaign. |
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