About 38 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV.
LONDON:
More than a third of countries around the world say they are at risk of running out of AIDS drugs due to power disruptions and other problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization said on Monday. world health.
Twenty-four of these 73 countries have already reported an extremely low supply of essential antiretroviral drugs, the agency said.
“The results of this survey are deeply worrying,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement at the start of the international AIDS conference.
“We cannot let the COVID-19 pandemic reverse the hard-won gains in the global response to this disease.”
The WHO has said that around 8.3 million people living with HIV depend on antiretrovirals in the 24 most affected states – about a third of all people on HIV treatment worldwide.
He did not name the affected countries in his investigation.
While there is no cure for the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, drugs called antiretrovirals (ARVs) can control the virus and prevent people with HIV from transmitting it to other people.
About 38 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV.
The investigation found that during the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, a failure of suppliers to deliver ARVs on time, combined with a considerable reduction in land and air transport and limited access to health services, caused major disruptions in the supply of medicines.
WHO has issued guidelines on maintaining access to essential health services, such as HIV treatment and testing centers, during the pandemic. He said health officials should consider “multi-month distribution” for AIDS drugs – a policy whereby drugs are prescribed for up to six months.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
