Contagious Disease Current Events

Some good news

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the US, there was some good news last week from this year’s AIDS conference. Due to COVID-19, the conference had to be held remotely. One policy goal is known as the 90:90:90, which means to identify 90% of HIV cases, treat 90% of those identified and supress viral load to undetectable levels for 90% of those treated. The Economist reports:

Fourteen countries, including Botswana, Cambodia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, report that they have reached the 90:90:90 goal. Two of them, Switzerland and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) report 95:95:95—which is actually the target for 2030.

One can see the general trends is positive around the world as well.


https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/07/08/this-years-aids-conference-has-brought-snippets-of-good-news

While COVID-19 has interrupted the supply chain somewhat for antiretroviral drugs, new preventative treatments, such as Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir) and cabotegravir have been shown to be highly effective pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatments.

While the global burden of HIV is still high, the AIDS Conference highlights that for this disease at least, things are at least trending in the right direction.

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