The red color, that of blood, and an inverted V, symbol of silence. They stand together in the ribbon which is the symbol of one of the best known campaigns to bring attention to HIV and AIDS. To devise the Ribbon Project has been Patrick O’Connell died on March 23 in a Manhattan hospital at the age of 67, lived with the disease for almost 40 years.
For his campaigns, but also for the life lived as a positive HIV virus, he is a symbol and also a model. “Thanks to the drugs that have evolved over the years, the infection can be managed,” he explains Valeria Calvino, vice president of Anlaids Onlus, “They need to be taken daily, but soon more will be available with injection once a month or even every two.
The cases of AIDS in Western countries are decreasing ».
Not so in other countries where there are drug distribution programs, but other problems remain. “In some countries, young women are the most easily infected, still victims of violence, still child brides. In many countries, protected sex does not exist for women ».
The key, pending the arrival of one of the many vaccines under study, lies in the protection and timeliness of diagnosis. HIV is a virus that is basically transmitted sexually with unprotected intercourse: the condom remains essential, but there is more. «Thanks to the drugs, an HIV positive person who, with the therapies, has an undetectable low viral load, does not transmit the infection. It is important to take the test, it is important to know. If a person is HIV positive, he begins drug treatment immediately, and in a short time he reaches the undetectable viral load and does not transmit the virus “.
There are rapid tests with the response in about twenty minutes. Many associations are doing them. Unfortunately, the stigma still exists: people rejected by the dentist or another doctor, people who have difficulties in the workplace, discrimination against children of positive people living with HIV.
«As associations we have been campaigning for years and, above all, we have many meetings in schools. There have been few effective ministerial campaigns in our country. We are often still at those images with people with the purple halo. In our country, there is no programmed sex education in schools, it is all left to the good will of principals and teachers ”, adds the vice president of Anlaids.
Has anything changed with the pandemic? «You only meet at a distance in schools and some problems in the hospital. With the Covid, which is infectious disease, the wards have been largely occupied with the management of this. There has been less room for those who are HIV positive. Prevention has stopped in all fields ».
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