World AIDS Day

December 1 is World AIDS Day. The day is dedicated to raise awareness of AIDS pandemic, to pay tribute to the people who have tragically died of AIDS, to support the people living with HIV/AIDS, and also to celebrate the success of new medical innovations.

The virus spread no more. UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) says its goal is to end the epidemic by 2030. Now the goal seems feasible and I want all of us to help. Well, what do I know about medical science? None. I'm just saying "seems feasible" only by looking at the latest figures (which I can show you later). The least I can do is to talk about it, write about World AIDS Day and keep making donations whenever I can.

I'm not trying to patronise like a snooty fundraiser who knows-it-all. I'm probably worse. The Day means a lot to me personally. Because the fear of contracting HIV was always there back in my younger days. Because I was having unprotected sex here & there. And of course some of the guys turned out to be HIV+ and there would be some dramas. Had myself tested regularly and had many sleepless nights - fear of receiving is one thing but the fear of spreading without knowing is another.

One guy broke down in tears as he confessed he was HIV+ after we had condomless sex several occasions (versatile roles if you want to know). I tried to comfort him out of pity, saying we'd give our relationship another try with safer sex from then on, thinking It was only myself to blame. Then I broke up with him because he was too crazy (the pot calling the kettle black). No, I wasn't a teenager. I was just freaking out of order. I didn't even realise what he had done to me was a criminal offence. Well, he's dead now anyway. Miraculously my test result was negative.

If I say I'm just an ordinary gay guy, you'll probably laugh. But I've had many friends like myself, some are positive, and I've always tried my best to help them tackle the stigma issues. I've even volunteered for an AIDS charity group. It really has come a long way since I lost some great friends to AIDS during 1990's, and for that reason, World AIDS Day means so much more to me personally comparing to any other commemorative days.

Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)

You may have heard of PEP and PrEP. They're both medications to prevent a HIV negative person from contracting the virus.

• PEP (Post-exposure prophylaxis) is used when you "think" you've been in contact with HIV virus, and you must start receiving the treatment within 72 hours.
• PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis) is used to protect against catching HIV, and it should be taken regularly.

But there's another form of antiretroviral therapy for HIV positive person to receive in order to prevent it from spreading. According to Terence Higgins Trust, only 9% of the public know about this effective treatment.

"Can't Pass It On"

The study in the past several years now proves that the most recent highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) cuts HIV transmission between partners to extremely close to zero. You can read the publication by the JAMA Network here; that the therapy was tested on 1166 sero-different couples (means one is HIV+ and the other one's not). About 1/3 of them were MSM (gay male, man-sex-man).

Only those who are HIV+ need to receive the treatment. After 22,000 instances of condomless sex between the MSM couples and 36,000 instances between the heterosexual couples over the years, The HIV transmission rate was almost zero...apart from 11 couples, 8 of whom admitted cheating on their partner.

Terence Higgins Trust has been running this "Can't Pass It On" campaign. Other organisations may be promoting the therapy too, but I live in the UK and have been a supporter of this UK based organisation for over 20 years, so I just like to recommend their page. Here's what they say.

End The AIDS Epidemic by 2030

So here's a data according to UNAIDS. In 2016 there were;

• 36.7 million people living with HIV in the world.
• 19.5 million people (53%) were on antiretroviral therapy (ART or HAART).
• 16 million people (44%) had suppressed viral loads (means they're HIV+ but could have unprotected sex without spreading!)
• 1.8 million people newly infected with HIV during the year.

If you see the glass half empty, 17.2 million - 47% of people living with HIV could not either get access to the ART or see effective results from the treatment. The numbers are quite staggering. I've done a chart for the past 7 years - as you can see the percentage of people who are on ART treatment has been steadily going up.

We can see the ratio is going to be - or at least we can hope it will be - very close to 100% one day in the near future.

Let's not forget that the number of people living with HIV is still increasing. Also the death rates; you can easily do the maths here. 36.1 million people were living with HIV in 2015. 1.8 million newly infected in 2016 = 37.9. But it shows 36.7 instead. Majority of the difference of 1.2 million is by AIDS related death. We can only hope these numbers will decrease year on year. 

To everyone who's involved with HIV/AIDS treatments - December 1st, World AIDS Day.