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Even including all the poorest countries, the world average is 82%. Experts say that people in Lithuania do not want to be treated for HIV because they feel ashamed of the disease and are afraid of being excluded from society.
HIV is transmitted through the blood, through sexual intercourse, and an infected mother can transmit it to her baby during pregnancy, delivery, or breastfeeding. Untreated HIV infection can reach the final stage in a few years – AIDS, when the immune system weakens to a critical state and the body loses immunity against other dangerous diseases.
In thirty years, 3,323 HIV cases were detected in Lithuania, but only 43%. patients are treated for this disease.
Jurgita Poškevičiūtė, the head of the administration of the coalition of non-governmental organizations and experts “Galiu gyventi”, notes that in Lithuania and other United Nations countries it was planned to achieve intermediate results of 90-90-90 people living with HIV later this year.
“The goal was for 90% of all people with the disease to know they had it, 90% would receive treatment and another 90% would have good treatment results and the virus would stop stopping and will not be transmitted to other people. By 2030, the UN has set a target of 100 percent. stop the spread of the disease, ”he explains.
It is also supported by Giedrius Likatavičius, a consultant for the Demetra Association of Women Affected by HIV and AIDS and their families.
“These goals set in 2014 were based on mathematical models that if countries reach their goal by 2020, then HIV by 2030, when the problem will disappear from public health priorities. This has led to some advances in prevention and treatment. For example, the right treatment also works as prevention, so combining everything can solve this problem, “he says.
The path to treatment can be long.
At present, it has been established that out of 3,323 HIV-positive people identified in Lithuania, only 43%, or 1,423 people, are receiving treatment. In the Central Europe and Asia region, meanwhile, 63 percent receive treatment. in Western Europe and North America, up to 91%. of all people living with HIV.
“One of the problems that arises when getting tested for HIV is that when we go to a GP to request a test, we will have to pay for it ourselves, so there are quite a few barriers for people at risk that prevent or hinder this test or treatment.
For example, if a person is, say, out of prison and does not have health insurance, they have to pay for the test and then the long journey to treatment begins, which can detain patients.
When a positive case of HIV is detected, the person must present an identity document, if he does not have it, which costs money and would have to wait a month. After completing this step, it would be different to obtain health insurance and only then to register with a general practitioner or pay for your consultation, get a referral to an infectious disease specialist and, if this doctor is not in the sick person’s town, another trip to another city.
A visit to an infectious disease specialist would lead to a confirmatory examination and, if confirmed, the certificate must be taken to the health funds to adjust the insurance to the cost of treatment. Then there is a blood test that confirms the diagnosis, another consultation with an infectious disease specialist, during which more tests are ordered, after the tests another consultation is expected and finally the treatment is prescribed ”, he mentions until the end of the treatment.
Brigita Kairienė, head of the Communicable Disease Management Division at the National Center for Public Health (NVSC), adds that it often happens that people simply fear the reactions of those around or close to them. The specialist adds that in Lithuania there have been cases in which employees of a medical institution came to people with HIV with double gloves. There has also been a case in which in a kindergarten in the country, parents refused to marry their children after learning that there was a child in the group who had the disease.
However, the main obstacles to stopping HIV remain lack of human resources, lack of funding, changes in legislation, a change in priority areas such as the new prioritization of coronavir this year, limited intervention in risk groups and lack of cooperation from stakeholders. .
Mothers transmit the disease to babies.
B. Kairienė, Chief of the NVSC’s Communicable Disease Management Division, adds that 13% of diagnosed HIV cases were already in the late stages or, in other words, had already entered the stage of AIDS.
“Of all people with HIV in Lithuania, 56.6 percent. infected with injection drug use, 23.7 percent. – during contact with heterosexual people, 8.7 percent. – during homosexual relations and 10.8 percent. people did not want or did not know the cause of the infection. There were also 7 cases in which a mother passed HIV infection to her baby, ”he says.
There is also a trend in our country that HIV is more common among people of working age and that women who contract the disease through sexual contact with men who use injection drugs are more likely to contract the disease.
Another obstacle to HIV research and treatment is the research itself, which is reimbursed by the state only to people at risk, such as people in prisons or blood donors, injection drug users, and men in relationships. sex with men. pay for themselves.
“About a fifth of people who inject drugs are living with HIV. In Lithuania, men who had sex with other men were also interviewed, of whom 7.3% indicated they had HIV and only 1 % all respondents took preventive measures, “he says.
B. Kairienė notes that high-risk groups include men who have sex with other men, injection drug users, incarcerated people, and people who provide sexual services.
HIV signs
According to Demetra, an association of women and their families affected by HIV and AIDS, about 70 percent of people living with HIV People can experience symptoms of primary HIV infection similar to those of long-term flu: fever , swollen lymph nodes, muscle or joint pain, headache, etc.
However, after 5 to 7 years, no other symptoms may appear. During all this time, the immune system slowly weakens, that is, weight loss, loss of appetite, night sweats, low temperature. When immunity is deeply compromised and a person becomes less and less protected from diseases or infections that a healthy immune system can protect against, the last stage of HIV disease is AIDS.
Today, HIV infection is not a death sentence. There are antiretroviral drugs prescribed by a doctor who treats HIV, depending on the patient’s condition. Medications do not cost the patient, they are reimbursed in full. Medicines prevent the virus from multiplying and treat illnesses caused by HIV. Unfortunately, there are no drugs that can completely cure HIV.
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