WHO Recommends HIV Drugs To Be Prescribed Earlier
Amongst other yearly recommendations to mark Tuesday's 'World AIDS Day', the World Health Organisation (WHO) has proposed that all of those who are infected with HIV/AIDS be given antiretroviral therapy (AVT) when their CD4 cell count reaches 350 cells per mm3, instead of waiting until sufferers reach the much lower threshold of 200 cells per mm3, which is the current official UN recommendation. This will ultimately mean much larger quantities of these drugs being administered, and with further recommendations which will see pregnant infected mothers-to-be being given these drugs for longer periods, it seems that the drug companies are in for a windfall, of epic proportions, over the coming years. But is this really the method we should use to combat this mysterious condition? And with 23% of the World's public health spending already directed at combating HIV and AIDS - when they are implicated in about 4% of the World's deaths - is this large-scale global investment really reaping the dividends which we should expect? And why can't we work this disease out?
December.05.2009 -
George Valentine Corr, Blatant News Editor
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WHAT IS HIV & WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
At this point in time, we can treat those who are infected with the condition we know as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) with much better medical advancements then in the previous couple of decades, and we can prolong their lives, along with the quality of their health, for much longer than ever, but we still don't seem to be able to pinpoint exactly what this virus is. Maybe it was a quirk of evolution which created it, or maybe it came about due to man-made circumstances - either accidental or purposeful - or maybe there is some completely off-road explanation for it's sudden appearance in the early 80's.
HIV PREVALENCE AROUND THE WORLD FOR 15-49 YEAR OLDS
Source: 2008 UNAIDS Report on the global AIDS epidemic (image: Homer Slips / GrCampbell / Public Domain)
THEORY'S ABOUND, BUT IT'S THE CD4 CELL'S THAT COUNT
I like the theory which depicts the HIV condition as having always been there amongst the human population throughout history, becoming activated amongst people who are already dying from certain conditions, like organ failure due to drug over-use, and from malnutrition brought about by starvation. For me, this goes some way to explaining why apparently only certain groups within the global society have actually become infected in great numbers, like those who had already been sick due to long-term drug abuse, or as we are now seeing with the AIDS Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, those who may have been expected to die in similar numbers from malnutrition. If that theory were correct, people would have died before the 80's from the exact same condition we now know as HIV, but under a different guise before the virus was discovered in 1981. That's purely speculation though, as are the many other theory's out there, but what is obvious, is that some people's CD4 cell counts drop, which lower's their immune system in some critical ways, and this can lead to associated illnesses which will ultimately prove fatal to them.
BASIC STATS FOR EACH COUNTRY
HIV Statistics for The World
HIV Statistics for Europe
HIV Statistics for North America
HIV Statistics for South America
HIV Statistics for Asia
HIV Statistics for Africa
HIV Statistics for Oceania
SOME DRUGS DO SOMETHING
According to the general research provided by the WHO, the United Nations, and many other official global health bodies, giving anti retroviral drugs to those people whose CD4 cell counts are lower than 350 cells per mm3, will, in most cases, prolong their lives greatly. It appears that this treatment works for people who are living with certain terminal illnesses, by boosting these particular cells, so I would not argue against giving appropriate people these drugs at an earlier point in their sickness, if this research which we are consuming is entirely correct.
UNRELIABLE STATS & CONFUSING DIAGNOSTIC STANDARDS
I do however have a problem with this directing of massive resources at this one disease, with no credible storyline for this condition having popped up by now. After spending hundreds of billions, we still don't understand it properly, and while we are willing to fill millions of people full of 'experimental' drugs, many argue that these treatments cause side effects which mirror the patients' ultimate various causes of death. And what makes this worse, is that a huge proportion of the 33.4 million people who are fingered as having the HIV virus around the World, have never been tested properly for it, and may never be, due to the costly nature of testing being prohibitive in the poorer nations who make up the bulk of the 30+ million infected with HIV around the World. In many parts of Africa a positive diagnosis for HIV is made when a person simply presents themselves with a particular combination of symptoms, which, in reality, could also possibly point to other forms of illness. And when different industrialised countries - and even different states within the US - have different levels of CD4 cells as their gauge for diagnosing a person with the HIV virus, then it just gets all the more confusing. For example, with a certain level of HIV anti-bodies in my system, I could be considered HIV+ in New York, whilst still being negative in Sydney.
PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV - GLOBAL POPULATION, BY REGION
Sub-Saharan Africa - 22,400,000
South and Southeast Asia - 3,800,000
South and Central America - 2,000,000
Eastern Europe and Central Asia - 1,500,000
North America - 1,400,000
East Asia - 850,000
Western and Central Europe - 850,000
Middle East and North Africa - 310,000
Caribbean - 240,000
Oceania - 59,000
Global Total - 33,400,000
Source: UNAIDS 2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic
HIV TRAVEL & RESIDENCY RESTRICTIONS AROUND THE WORLD
Source: ILGA Report - Travel and residence regulations for people with HIV and AIDS (image: Verdy P license)
UNAIDS 2009 YEARLY REPORT - STARK FACTS
Some of the HIV & AIDS statistics which have been doing the rounds in the mainstream media over the past few days have been a little frightening to say the least. 30 of the estimated 33 million people living with HIV throughout the World live in low-to-middle income countries, with 1.8 million of the World's 2.1 million children who are infected with the virus currently residing in Sub-Saharan Africa. That part of the World has borne the brunt of the AIDS epidemic, even if these UN statistics cannot be independently verified and are questionable in many ways, but things are beginning to change to the South of the African continent, particularly with Thabo Mbeki having left the presidency in South Africa. His refusal to believe that AIDS even existed has hampered the collective bargaining of the region with drug companies and western governments alike. But after his departure, even though the countries massive numbers still continue to swell, with almost 6 million South Africans now believed to be infected out of a total population of about 50 million people in the country, there is a wind of hope that stability in the numbers of newly confirmed infections will eventually prevail, and that drugs will be made available to all those who need them very soon.
THE 10 LARGEST HIV-INFECTED POPULATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
1 - South Africa (Africa) - 5,700,000
2 - Nigeria (Africa) - 2,600,000
3 - India (Asia) - 2,400,000
4 - Kenya (Africa) - 2,000,000
5 - Mozambique (Africa) - 1,500,000
6 - Tanzania (Africa) - 1,400,000
7 - Zimbabwe (Africa) - 1,300,000
8 - United States (North America) - 1,200,000
9 - Zambia (Africa) - 1,100,000
9 - DR Congo (Africa) - 1,100,000
view a full list of HIV-infected populations for 153 countries
Source: UNAIDS 2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic (Except Kenya & DR Congo which are both rough independent estimates, because UNAIDS provides no official estimate for either)
THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
Mbeki did not believe that AIDS existed but the current president of the country, Jacob Zuma, is much more intune with the official line, and much more interested in dealing with the giant profit-driven global pharmaceutical corporations which have the destiny of over 3 dozen of the World's people in their various chemical treatments. Zuma has pledged to get the drugs to 80% of those who need them by 2011, and has allotted a sizeable chunk of the countries budget to financing these massive drug shipments. Now those private entities will have what they want. South Africa - their biggest market - is beginning to buy drugs in fantasy quantities, with 2 million of their people already on the expensive treatments out of a total of 4 million on anti-HIV drugs in Africa alone, whilst most industrialised nations already provide huge healthcare payments for such treatments and drugs for their citizens, or force them to do so themselves. In an effort to lower the mother-to-child transmission rate for HIV, pregnant mothers are now firmly on the WHO/UN's radar too, with some pivotal advice being given as part of the World Health Organisation 2009 Yearly HIV & AIDS Recommendations.
MOTHERS BEING TARGETED
New guidelines for HIV+ pregnant mothers will see them taking antiretroviral drugs from 14 weeks of pregnancy, instead of from 28 weeks. Mothers are also being told that it is now safe to breastfeed for the first time ever, and right up until the child is 12 months old, apparently without any major risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, so long as either the mother or the baby are on the drugs. For the drug companies, this is their golden era, with 23% of the World's healthcare already being thrown at them before these new global policy changes are implemented by many nations, so this percentage is sure to rise over the next handful of years. I just hope that the pharmaceutical companies begin to repay that highly-profitable investment from all of us - through private healthcare costs and government investments which are funded by the taxes which we pay - with some real answers to this fatal riddle that is HIV. Or at worst, they should atleast deliver some treatments which don't cause such terrible side-effects which often seem suspiciously comparable to the end stages of the condition which we now call AIDS.
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