Do you know that an HIV patient on drugs now has the same life expectancy just like a normal person?

If there is a disease that will have marked this century, it is HIV-AIDS. In recent years, large laboratories have succeeded in developing drugs that can slow the progression of the disease in the body, but few have perceived it. Combinations of antiretrovirals were introduced in the 1990s. Used in the Northern parts of the globe, they have contributed significantly to the decline in AIDS.

With tritherapy, life expectancy for people infected with the AIDS virus has increased by 10 years in the United States and Europe.

The scientific journal “The Lancet” published a study Thursday, May 11, which specifies that patients with HIV now have the same life expectancy as the general population.

Since 1990, combinations of antiretrovirals used in northern countries have contributed significantly to the decline in AIDS. According to the authors of the study published in the medical journal The Lancet, this progress is linked to the development of less toxic drug combinations, a wider choice of treatment for people infected with resistant strains of the virus and a better adherence to protocols of care.

Thus, it is clear to scientists that, between 1996 and 2013, the life expectancy of patients affected by the AIDS virus aged 20 years increased by nine years for women and ten years for men in the European Union and the United States.

As a result, AIDS organizations have been forced to reorganize their way of working. “Once the tritherapies arrived, it allowed people to no longer stay at home, for those who were HIV-positive and without treatment, were handicapped and could not go to work because the weight of the disease prevented them from doing so. Once put on tritherapy, it completely boosted their lives. They were able to return to the labor market. The structures that accompany these people have also been forced to reconsider their way of working. And so we already saw with the arrival of tritherapies that there was a clear improvement in the lives of people, “explains Ariel Jean Urbain, the president of Afrique Arc-en-Ciel/Paris Ile-de-France.

The opportunity to recall that to be treated, one must first be tested. This is recommended by the World Health Organization in order to start treatment as soon as possible.

Written by Ashembwom Stephanie, June 25th 2017