3 ms·
Yes, because it continues to spread widely and access to treatment, let alone PReP, is extremely uneven across the world. Both PReP and antivirals are also not
by stormbrew 6y ago
Yes, because it continues to spread widely and access to treatment, let alone PReP, is extremely uneven across the world.
Both PReP and antivirals are also not easy. You don't just get a shot and not worry about HIV for a few years, you have to take a pill every day as long as you're sexually active, and then treatment antivirals are expensive and need to be used consistently as well. One person slipping up can mean a lot of people catch it. Even assuming you know you have it to begin with, which is often not obvious until you've been a carrier for a while.
Never mind religious groups going around vilifying condoms doesn't help.
It's getting better, but yes it is still considered a global pandemic.
I mean, it's not the same thing as COVID but like COVID it carries with it its own unique challenges and at no point has the world dumped billions of dollars into single-use vaccines for it like we've done with COVID. Its stigma has migrated (or compounded) from a "gay disease" to an "african disease".
Honestly, I really hope that one silver lining out of all this is that an mRNA vaccine for HIV might get some development now. There was some work that way before everything got diverted to COVID and now that tech has proven itself so...
- tinus_hn 6y agoIf taking a pill to protect your own life every day is too much hard work we are doomed. But we aren’t, as PReP both protects people from infecting others as well as getting infected themselves. So no, an infection does not require one person to slip up. For an infection to occur requires both persons to slip up. Getting PReP requires regular HIV tests so it is in fact obvious that you are infected, if you get infected. Of course this indeed only solves the issue in the developed world that can pay for (and wants to use) this medication but there really is no way around that. People that don’t want or can’t pay for this medication won’t want and be able to pay for a vaccine either.