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This year’s World AIDS Day finds us still mired in another pandemic: COVID-19.
The highly infectious new coronavirus has spread across the globe, devastating healthcare systems and devastating economies as governments cracked down on measures to contain the spread. Since the HIV / AIDS pandemic of the 1990s, countries had not faced such a common health threat.
This explains why UNAIDS has selected the theme “Global Solidarity, Shared Responsibility” for this year’s World AIDS Day.
Infectious diseases like these continue to pose a great threat to human health and prosperity. About 32.7 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses in the past 40 years. At the time of writing, 1.4 million people had already died from COVID-19 in just one year.
These diseases require incredible expertise, collaboration, and dedication from all levels of society to track, understand, treat, and prevent.
The response to HIV / AIDS developed on a much longer trajectory than COVID-19. But it is, in some respects, a shining example of what can be achieved when countries and people work together. The work of organizations such as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the International AIDS Society help coordinate the rapid exchange of information and resources between healthcare providers and communities.
The Global Fund and PEPFAR have mobilized resources that have helped reduce morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income regions. AIDS-related deaths have decreased worldwide by 39% since 2010.
These and other groups have also fought against high drug prices that would make drugs inaccessible to many in the developing world. In South Africa, the epicenter of the HIV epidemic, a daily supply of the simplest antiretrovirals cost around R250 in 2002. Today, an easier and more pleasant treatment taken once a day costs a few rand.
Collaboration and coordination have also meant that drugs have been developed and tested in populations around the world. And once available, global guidelines and training opportunities ensure that healthcare delivery and quality are standardized.
Many of these achievements did not come without a fight. Dedicated and sustained activism, at the political and community level, was required to reduce drug prices for the global South and is constantly required to ensure an inclusive distribution of resources.
The corollary is also true: the areas where the world continues to struggle emerge predominantly where there is a lack of solidarity and agreement. These include the lack of political support to implement evidence-based protection mechanisms for vulnerable or stigmatized populations. For example the legalization of homosexuality. This results in continued but preventable HIV infection and related mortality.
These lessons must be heeded as the world prepares for the next phase of COVID-19 management. All the interventions that helped contain and manage HIV and AIDS are critical to ensuring that no country, regardless of its state of development, and no population, especially those facing stigma and the battle to access health services, stay behind.
Building on existing systems
Lessons learned from HIV and AIDS can be used to inform the response to COVID-19, as the challenges are similar.
Many of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials are taking place in various countries, including South Africa. The ability to conduct these studies, including clinical staff and trial sites, is well established as a result of decades of HIV / AIDS research. There is fear that developing nations may be excluded from access to an effective COVID-19 vaccine. But now there are global mechanisms to prevent this and instead encourage and enable global solidarity, some of which were championed by the response to HIV / AIDS.
The COVID-9 Tool Access Accelerator (ACT), established by the World Health Organization in April 2020 in collaboration with many other global organizations, governments, civil society and industry, have committed themselves through the pillar known as Covax, to the equitable distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as diagnostic tests and treatments. These global institutions and mechanisms require ongoing support.
With the deployment of an effective vaccine, the end of COVID-19 could soon be in sight. For HIV, vaccine development has been more complex and disappointing. The global community must remain committed to promoting access and supporting the many incredible prevention and treatment options available. The unprecedented effort by private industry in the response to the COVID-19 vaccine sheds light on what can be achieved when all stakeholders participate. The HIV and TB vaccine efforts need a similar effort.
These are not the only pandemics the world will face. In fact, there are strong predictions that the emergence of new pandemics will increase in the future. This is due to the effects of globalization, climate change, and proximity to wildlife.
The best hope for humanity is not to lose sight of what these pandemics cost us in terms of loved ones, in terms of freedom and financially. We must now prepare collectively in all countries and at all levels of society. These preparations should be based on the lessons learned from HIV / AIDS and relearn from COVID-19.
Social solidarity
The success of the global response to current and emerging pandemics will depend on the ability of the least vulnerable to recognize their shared responsibility and respond to those calls.
An important truth about the HIV epidemic is that it does not discriminate. No infectious disease recognizes political boundaries and everyone is at risk of becoming infected or affected. At least because of this, we must continue to work together on a global scale knowing that “no one is safe, until everyone is safe.”
Carey Pike, Executive Research Assistant for the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation contributed to this article.
Linda-Gail Bekker, professor of medicine and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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