Countries running out of life-saving HIV drugs, says WHO

Arhama Altaf

07th Jul, 2020. 09:34 am
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A number of countries globally say they are at risk of running out of life-saving AIDS drugs because of disruptions to supply lines and other problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Twenty-four out of those 73 nations have already reported critically low supplies of the vital antiretroviral drugs, the agency said.

“The findings of this survey are deeply concerning,” the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement at the International AIDS conference.

“We cannot let the COVID-19 pandemic undo the hard-won gains in the global response to this disease.

The WHO said about 8.3 million HIV-positive people are reliant on the antiretroviral drugs in the 24 worst-hit states. Whereas, about a third of all people taking HIV treatment globally.

While there is no cure for the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, drugs known as antiretrovirals (ARVs) can control the virus and prevent HIV-positive people from transmitting it to others.

About 38 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV.

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