According to Eamonn Murphy, the UNAIDS regional director for Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe Central Asia, the recent rise in HIV infections among young persons in the Asia Pacific region is a grave problem.
New HIV treatments were largely among those aged 15-24 last year in Thailand, with 47 % of total new HIV infections presenting within this party, he said.
Next flood of HIV
Thailand is just one of the nations in the region that is showing this pattern; UNAIDS has also identified a second wave of young people in developing nations in this area.
” If we look at the Philippines, the vast majority of the new infections there are in that age group and particularly with men having sex with men and transgender, we’ve had around a 500 % increase]in HIV infections ] in the Philippines ]since 2010]”, Mr Murphy told the Bangkok Post on the sidelines of the 25th International Aids Conference ( AIDS 2024 ) late last month in Munich, Germany.
” Myanmar, Indonesia, I mentioned the Philippines and Cambodia, are finding that half of their new HIV infections are among the fresh, so we’re labelling this an as a trend that’s happening across the territory”.
An estimated 6.7 million people in the Asia-Pacific place were living with HIV in 2023, according to a UNAIDS record this time. After eastern and southern Africa, this is the largest outbreaks in the world.
Last year, 23 % of new HIV infections were reported in the Asia-Pacific region. Aids deaths have decreased by 51 % since 2010, but new infections have decreased by only 13 % over the same time.
In 2023, there were 150, 000 new infections in the region, as well as 150, 000 Aids-related incidents.
The decline in new infection is primarily attributable to the spread of diseases in six nations. Since 2010, new infections have risen in Afghanistan ( 175 % ), Bangladesh ( 20 % ), Fiji ( 241 % ), Laos ( 23 % ), Papua New Guinea ( 104 % ) and the Philippines ( 543 % ).
Efforts to increase access to combination HIV prevention services, including harm reduction, self-testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, remain inadequate ( PrEP is a treatment used to prevent people from contracting the virus if exposed ), the report said. ( Story continues below )
Indian Aids activity improvement
Additionally, Mr. Murphy praised Thailand’s ability to combat the HIV illness.
He claimed that Thailand has engaged with those who are assisting people who have been HIV-positive through community-based initiatives.
He said Thailand had some well-known persons as role models in HIV protection.
Through her support of pre-exposure prophylaxis ( PrEP ) programs, HRH Princess Soamsawali Krom Muen Suddhanarinatha has been at the forefront of Thailand’s response to HIV for years.
When taken as directed, PrEP is very effective at preventing HIV transmission, but UNAIDS wants to connect with young people to promote protection as the main approach, he said.
He said,” We need to encourage them to use all the available services and introduce new prevention tools so that they can have more options for protecting themselves.”
One of the most glaring topics that was discussed at the Munich conference, according to Mr. Murphy, was the development of new antiviral injectables, which are now available for those who have HIV.
” But for me, prevention is much more efficient than treatment because prevention costs both the patient and community over time no matter how great the cure is. We need to work harder on prevention”, he said.
Some people do n’t understand why prevention is so crucial to stopping new HIV infections, according to Mr. Murphy, who works with officials from various nations.
They have a diverse background, and he claimed that UNAIDS is dependent on the protection information. ( Story continues below )
Dr. Nittaya Phanuphak, the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation ( IHRI), is the executive director of UNAIDS’s” U=U” prevention campaign.
U=U strategy
Mr Murphy called for countries in the region to promote the” U=U” campaign, urging their governments to conduct large-scale activities like Vietnam’s.
An educational strategy called U=U aims to show how successful HIV drugs are in preventing sexual transmission.
U=U means” Undetectable = Untransmittable”, indicating that if a person with HIV is on HIV medications ( antiretroviral therapy, or ART ) with a consistently undetectable HIV viral load, the virus cannot be transmitted to a sex partner. As a elimination plan, this is often referred to as Treatment as Prevention, or TasP.
According to Mr. Murphy, the strategy aims to stop those who are afflicted with HIV from being feared.
They may change humanity’s attitudes, helping people feel safer to go into a doctor or any other tests or avoidance.
Dr Nittaya Phanuphak, executive director of the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI), said she wanted the Thai government to support the U=U strategy.
She emphasized that civil society, the people of HIV-positive people, and local communities in Thailand have long held the concept that all HIV-positive people should be treated equally.
She argued that solid scientific evidence prevents the virus from being passed on to those who receive effective antiretroviral therapy and have HIV levels that are undetectable due to strong scientific research.