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UN AIDS chief: Pandemic may increase AIDS cases and deaths

New HIV / AIDS infections and deaths could rise as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts precautionary measures, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Biangima said in an interview broadcast today at Reuters Next.

Bianca, who is also the UN assistant secretary-general, said that especially during the first phase of the pandemic, fewer people chose to be tested and some left treatment due to long waits in clinics or other public security measures that prevented them from accessing precautionary measures.

“We really expect that in the coming years we may see more deaths, we may see more new infections as a result of these disorders,” he said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast by World AIDS Day.

Bianjama said vaccine nationalism, where rich countries buy vaccines and the poor are left to wait, was “one of the saddest places we are.”

As rich countries stockpiled vaccines, just over 7% of Africa’s population has just been fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data at Oxford University.

Some scientists believe that this may have been a factor in the emergence of Omicron, a new variant first discovered in the southern part of the African continent that has raised the alarm that vaccines may not be effective against it.

“It is no coincidence for most of us that it occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are many under-diagnosed HIV infections, or people who are immunosuppressed with HIV,” said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. a separate interview.

Moore said people who are immunosuppressed can not get rid of the infection as quickly as those with a healthy immune system, and that a below-optimal immune response can allow the virus to continue to mutate.

“This is how other variants are said to have appeared – in immunocompromised humans,” he said.

Biangima said research shows that people with HIV are less likely than others to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but if infected, they are at a much higher risk of serious illness.

“That is why for developing countries with a high HIV burden, this is crucial,” he said of access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Source: AMPE

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Source From: Capital

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