Warn about late diagnosis of people with HIV

Among the many collateral damage that the covid pandemic caused to public health, its –negative– influence on another epidemic could not be absent: that of HIV/AIDS. According to data compiled by the NGO AHF Argentina, in 2022 it was discovered that 46% of the HIV tests that were positive were carried out on people who arrived “late” to the diagnosis (late presenters). A gloss ago that figure was better, it was around 25% to 30%. Precisely, to help reverse this failure, tonight the AHF organizes the 6th edition of the “Testing Night”, where free, safe and confidential HIV tests will be shown in twenty-five cities across the country.

“What happened is that due to the covid situation, many people stopped testing. Or it does it late,” Dr. Miguel Pedrola, Scientific Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the specialized NGO AHF Argentina, assured PERFIL. And he added: “According to official statistics, it is estimated that we have detected between 83 and 85% of HIV carriers in Argentina. And the objective, in order to end the epidemic, is to reach 95% of the cases”. Of course, the “last” group is the most complex to identify and attend to.

Precisely to be able to do it correctly, according to Pedrola, it is necessary to work with innovative strategies to be able to reach key social groups where the prevalence of this infection is above average. For example, men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, injection drug users, etc. But there are also lower “risk” groups, but who do not easily access tests simply for geographical reasons, for example, because they are far from a health center that offers free anonymous testing and subsequent counseling. For that, the NGOs organize this “Night”.

In Argentina, more than 23 thousand people have HIV and do not know it

Seeking to enhance this offer and expand accessibility to the tests, in last year’s campaign the NGO worked in distant geographical points, including Tierra del Fuego. And by 2023, in order to complete the bullfight, some of the locations where this service is offered are on the northern border of the country: Jujuy.

The tests will also be carried out in the provinces of Formosa, Chaco, Corrientes, Misiones, Buenos Aires, Catamarca, Chubut, Córdoba, La Rioja, Río Negro, Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero.

The idea of ​​reducing the number of cases with a late diagnosis is very important to control the epidemic and also to manage the pathology. “In our recent campaigns we verified that 46% of the positive cases had less than 350 CD4 lymphocytes per cubic millimeter of blood, which means that their immune system was already impaired. And worse, of the total positives, 21% had less than 200 CD4 counts, that is, they already had severe Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

Diagnosis on time is not a minor issue. It is that for several years now there has been a series of medications capable of keeping the infection at bay indefinitely, while they are taken in a timely manner.

And in those cases, it is possible to collaborate to reduce new infections.