World AIDS Day 2016 – December 1
Substantial progress is being made, but more than half of all HIV patients are still untreated.
According to the World Health Organisation, the number of people living with HIV continues to increase in large part, because more people globally are accessing antiretroviral therapy and as a result, are living longer and healthier lives. As of June 2016, 18,2 million people were accessing antiretroviral treatment (ART). At the same time, even though new HIV infections have declined, there is still an unacceptably high number of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths occurring each year. In 2015, almost 2 million people were newly infected with HIV and 1.1 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses.
One of the major problems of the global initiative against HIV is the fact that the largest part of HIV infected people still does not have access to ART treatment, and worst of all, are often unaware of their infection. As such the WHO is now concentrating on a program of self diagnosis, hoping to decrease the enormous number of almost 19 million people World Wide that currently do not have access to ART treatment.
UNICEF together with UNAIDS point towards the high prevalence and lethality of AIDS amongst adolescents. They state that AIDS has become the leading cause of death for adolescents in Africa and the second leading cause of death among adolescents globally. Just one in four children and adolescents under the age of 15 have access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment. Deaths are declining in all age groups, except among 10–19 year olds. New HIV infections among adolescents are also not declining as quickly as among other age groups. Adolescent girls, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are most affected. In South Africa in 2013, more than 860 girls became infected with HIV every week, compared to 170 boys.
First Health Pharmaceuticals encourages the global AIDS awareness initiative and is fully dedicated to the development of new generations of HIV RNA Helicase Translation Inhibitors, which have already proven to be active against all antiretroviral therapy resistant HIV strains.
37 million HIV infected 18,8 million still untreated 1,1 million deaths annually