World AIDS Day: Thailand averages 16 people infected with HIV per day, UN AIDS worried about dropping card covids

The United Nations AIDS Program (UNAIDS) has urged countries to focus on ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. After finding signs that this infectious disease was neglected during the COVID-19 crisis If this continues, 7.7 million people will die from HIV/AIDS within 10 years.

During the 2 years of the COVID-19 outbreak UN AIDS finds lower HIV testing volume Decrease in the number of infected people taking antiretroviral therapy. And the number of new HIV infections is dropping at a slower rate than it should be. This has raised concerns that UNAIDS will not meet its recently announced goal this year of eliminating AIDS by 2030.

“It’s time to take urgent action,” UN AIDS Director Winnie Bianyima said in a statement on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, 2021. for a while are facing tougher obstacles than ever from the COVID-19 outbreak. which affects both treatment, prevention and education.”

UN AIDS says that although the number of new HIV infections is declining globally, But the decline is not fast enough to end the epidemic by 2030, as they are aiming for. By 2020, there are 1.5 million new HIV infections worldwide, and some countries are still infected. New ones are also increasing.

Statistics also suggest that new cases are linked to social inequality: in sub-Saharan Africa, six out of seven children with HIV are girls. It was also found that gay male love group Sex workers and drug addicts are 25-35 times more likely to contract HIV than the average person.

The link between HIV infection and social inequality led UN AIDS to coin the idea of ​​this year’s World AIDS Day campaign, which marks 40 years since HIV was discovered. The world’s first V. End inequalities, End AIDS and giving equal importance to all groups of people

for the situation in Thailand The AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Division, Department of Disease Control, stated that as of April 2021, there were 493,859 people living with HIV, of which 5,825 were new cases (average 16 person/day) and 11,214 deaths from HIV/year (mean 31 deaths/day).

Cheewanun Lertpiriyasuwat, MD. Director of the AIDS Division State that the HIV/AIDS situation in Thailand has improved. The number of new infections has dropped from the hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands of years ago to around 5,800 this year.

However, Thailand aims to reduce the number of new infections to no more than 1,000 per year by 2030, which Dr Cheewanan admits. “It’s a difficult goal.”

Director of AIDS Division Support the idea of ​​this year’s World AIDS Day campaign that tackling social inequality is the key to success in reducing new infections. This is because inequality hinders access to medical services for people living with HIV and vulnerable populations.

What is AIDS?

AIDS is a syndrome caused by infection with the HIV virus. which will destroy the white blood cells that are the source of immunity Make it easier to infect other diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, meningitis. Or some types of cancer are easier than normal people. HIV/AIDS Those infected with opportunistic infections will have severe symptoms. and is the leading cause of death.

There are three main routes of communication: sexual contact. Blood infection and mother to child

Source: Department of Disease Control

while Dr. Nittaya Panupak, Executive Director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in HIV which is a non-profit organization working on HIV/AIDS in Thailand Comments at the launch of the UN AIDS 2021 World AIDS Day Report hosted by UN AIDS The Asia-Pacific region today (30 Nov) said the coronavirus outbreak had reduced the number of HIV tests in Thailand last year. But this year it has returned to increase.

From the experience of working with NGOs and civil society during the COVID-19 outbreak Dr. Nittaya found that the heart of dealing with the public health crisis, whether it’s COVID-19 or HIV/AIDS is a community organization and civil society. which, if being empowered and supported It will play an important role in designing a system that provides people with access to medical services.

She urged the government and relevant agencies to take the opportunity. support and believe in these organizations Instead of centralizing the management in the government sector which sometimes has limited capacity to deal with public health problems.

“(During COVID) it will take some time for the government to recognize that the public health service system is at its full potential. Even if it allows to take care of covid patients at home,” said Dr. Nittaya. He also suggested that the government pay more attention to the primary care system and to make the community a leader in health system design.

The UN AIDS Day 2021 report highlights five key strategies agreed by the UN High Council on AIDS to be urgently needed to end the AIDS epidemic: