Lemons against the coronavirus?
1 December, 2020
A technological platform will be able to reproduce the functions of human organs in the laboratory and reduce animal experimentation
3 December, 2020
Patients, families and groups demand improvements in access to treatments // The Zaragoza City Council replaces the vandalized plaque in memory of the victims
Jorge Azcón, the mayor of Zaragoza, said this Tuesday: "We cannot let our guard down because 40 years have passed." He expressed it in relation to AIDS, HIV and the need not to neglect a disease that, no matter how much time has passed since its worst moments, continues to be an infection that leaves victims, new infections and that carries the burden of stigmatization.
On World AIDS Day, the groups that work with the sick, their families and the patients themselves demanded in Zaragoza "political commitment" and "redouble efforts" to combat the inequality in the treatment suffered by those who suffer from this disease. . At an event in the capital's Bruil park, where the monument to the victims of HIV is located and where the Zaragoza City Council has replaced the plaque that was vandalized a few months ago with better material, those affected launched their demands through of a manifesto.
«There can be no delays in care or access to drugs. The numbers of late diagnoses are very high and we cannot allow the covid crisis, which greatly affects vulnerable people, to further isolate and discriminate against this group. HIV is still present and no one should be left behind. There must be a guarantee of access to healthcare," they noted. "Prevention, early diagnosis and sexual health must be promoted, but this requires joint action by entities and administrations," they added.
Also present at the event, among other political officials, was the Health Minister of the DGA, Sira Repollés. It announced that, after the outbreak of the covid pandemic that has taken over any management, the working group in charge of reviewing the procedures for access to jobs and services of any nature will now be "reactivated" "with the purpose of eliminate any discriminatory requirements for people with AIDS," he said.
In Aragon, cases of new HIV infections grew by more than 12% in 2019, but in this sense, the general director of Public Health, Francisco Javier Falo, considered that "it is not necessarily negative information" because the objective is to "emerge infections" through rapid tests and early detection. "New cases are likely to continue to appear if policy measures are expanded," he said.
Regarding the profile, of the 131 HIV positives detected in 2019, 77,9% were men, the average age at diagnosis was 37,8 years and no cases were reported in children under 15 years of age. Heterosexual risk practice was the most frequent route of transmission, with 53,4% of cases, followed by homosexual risk practice, with 36,6%.
