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AIDS: The annual number of cases of the virus fell by 73%

The annual number of new cases HIV virus in the US fell by 73% from levels its peak between 1980 and 2019, According to a new study by the country’s health authorities published yesterday, Thursday, the ΑΠΕ. However, the proportion of people in the black or Hispanic communities infected with the AIDS virus in the total number of annual infections has increased. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Public Health released its first report on the then new and mysterious virus about 40 years ago, on June 5, 1981. “The decline is due to decades of work and collaboration between scientists, patients, activists and the general public,” she said. CDC Director Rochelle Wallenski. She recounted her experience as a young doctor in Baltimore, on the east coast of the United States.

At the height of the epidemic, “all I had to offer my patients was my hand and my presence next to their bed,” he recalls, as it was not until the mid-1990s that the first HIV-positive effective. There are an estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States, of whom about 13% are unaware. According to a new CDC study, the annual number of new infections went from about 20,000 in 1981 to a peak of 130,400 in 1984 and 1985.

THE This number then stabilized between 1991 and 2007, with around 50,000 to 58,000 new cases to be recorded annually, and then decreased in recent years, with 34,800 cases being recorded in 2019. However during this period, inequalities between the various communities increased. The rate of new annual HIV infections increased from 29 to 41% for blacks, among the total number of new cases, and by 16 to 29% for Hispanics.

AIDS: What are the main causes of infections

The Sexual intercourse between men is still the main source of new infections: 63% in 1981 and 66% in 2019. Although there is still no cure or vaccine, the so-called antiretroviral treatments allow the virus to be controlled and prevent it from causing AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

PrEP and PEP treatments, before and immediately after a possible exposure to the virus, are also now available to block the transmission of HIV. However, although PrEP is 99% effective, only 23% of the people who could benefit from taking it used it in 2019. Of that 23%, 63% were white, compared to only 8% black and 14% % of Spanish speakers.

The Periodic examinations and rapid tests have also made it possible to achieve this reduction in the number of infections. “Prevention tools are becoming increasingly effective but need to reach the most affected sections of the population,” the report said.

More than half of all new HIV infections are reported in the southern United States, and their numbers also remain high among transgender women and injecting drug users. Worldwide, nearly 32 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the outbreak, of which 730,000 in the US.

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