The World Health Organisation has released new guidelines that call for people who are HIV positive to begin treatment much sooner than is currently occurring. It is estimated that three million lives could be saved by 2025 if HIV medication is made available to people soon after they are tested.
Currently in many poorer nations HIV medications are not made available to people until the virus had progressed significantly. The new guidelines from the World Health Organsiation call for people to begin treatment as soon as possible.
Of the 34 million people currently living with HIV, the new guideline calls for 26 million of them to be receiving medication.
“We are raising the bar to 26 million people,” said Gottfried Hirnschall WHO HIV/AIDS department director who highlighted that the increased medication would not only keep people healthy but also reduce further transmissions of the virus.
There has been significant progress in increasing the number of people receiving medication worldwide, in 2002 only 300,000 people were being treated, that number has swelled to 9.7 million being treated last year. At the same time the amount of people dying has dropped globally. Indian pharmaceutical companies who make cheaper versions of the medications required and attributed with being a big part of the solution.
Under the new WHO’s guidelines medical providers are encouraged to start treatment in adults with HIV as soon as a patients CD4 cell count falls to a measure of 500 cells per cubic millimetre. The previous was to offer treatment at a CD4 count of just 350. At the previous level the virus would have already become to damage the patients immune system. The guidelines also call for all pregnant and breast feeding women to begin treatment immediately, and suggest that all children under the age of five should be treated automatically.
To achieve the new WHO target NGO’s working in the world’s poorest countries have highlighted that significant additional funding will be required.
OIP Staff , file photo
