Prevention is better than cure, and is cheaper too!
SHOBHA SHUKLA - CNS
Combination prevention of HIV transmission must remain an essential part of HIV response worldwide
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This is an old adage that signifies the importance of taking precautionary steps to prevent a problem from happening rather than fixing it after it occurs. It is a fundamental principle of healthcare to avoid/reduce occurrence of any disease.
Prevention is especially crucial to control the spread of infectious diseases, be they COVID-19, TB or HIV/AIDS. Unless we break the chain of transmission we will not be able to prevent new infections from occurring and we will not be able to #endTB or #endAIDS by 2030. This message was clearly brought out during the recently concluded 13th National Conference of AIDS Society of India (ASICON) under the theme of "Confronting pandemics with Proficiency, Precision and Persistence."
According to Dr Dilip Mathai, Dean and Professor of Medicine at Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Hyderabad, "We have preventive measures, including vaccines, and yet we are failing on primary prevention to break the chain of transmission of many infectious diseases. We are even failing to roll out the existing 19 vaccines against a host of diseases in the elderly. Unless we increase the healthcare spend, we will not be able to improve the health of our people".
In the case of HIV/AIDS, 1.5 million people globally, became newly infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2020. 100,000 of these infections occurred in South East Asia, out of which 69220 (69%) were in India alone. With an estimated 2.35 million of its people infected with this virus, India bears the second-highest burden of people living with HIV in the world (after South Africa) and the highest burden of the disease in South East Asia.
Although India's National AIDS Control Programme has made tremendous progress in bringing about a reduction of 66% in AIDS-related deaths and 37% reduction in yearly new infections as compared to 2010, we are still lagging behind in achieving the global UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets for 2020. With 190 new HIV infections occurring every day (or 8 new infections occurring every hour) in India, we do not seem to be doing very well in preventing the spread of the virus.
Preventive healthcare is a neglected aspect of our health systems, as compared to tertiary healthcare. There is more emphasis and more budget for tertiary care, but very less budget for primary care, lamented Dr Ishwar Gilada, President of AIDS Society of India (ASI) and member of the Governing Council of International AIDS Society (IAS), while interacting with the media at 13th ASICON.
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