FILE PHOTO: Patients, some HIV positive and their families protest the lack of medicines and medical supplies in hospitals, in front of the Ministry of Health in Caracas on April 18, 2018.
Luis Robayo | AFP | fake pictures
According to a survey by the World Health Organization, more than 70 countries warned that they are at risk of running out of HIV medications due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Twenty-four countries said they have a “critically low” stock of antiretroviral drugs, or ARVs, used largely as therapy to treat HIV, or that they have seen a disruption in their supply chain as a result of the pandemic, the WHO said.
“The results of this survey are deeply troubling,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “Countries and their development partners must do everything possible to ensure that people in need of HIV treatment continue to access it. We cannot allow the COVID-19 pandemic to undo the hard-earned achievements of the global response to this disease. “
In May, the WHO and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS estimated that AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa could double due to a six-month interruption in access to antiretroviral drugs. That estimate applied only until 2020. While there is no cure for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, antiretroviral drugs have been shown to control the virus and prevent infection for others.
The closure of ground and air transport, the failure of providers to deliver the drug and limited access to health services were some of the causes of disruption cited in the WHO survey. More than 25 million people were treated with antiretroviral drugs in 2019, the WHO said, adding that it hopes to miss the 2020 targets.
On Saturday, the WHO announced the suspension of its trial of the HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir as a combined treatment for hospitalized patients with Covid-19. Provisional results showed that the drug cocktail “produces little or no reduction in mortality” among Covid-19 patients. Both drugs are regularly used in ARVs.
The results of the WHO survey are the latest example of how the coronavirus, which has infected approximately 11.5 million people and killed at least 534,825 people worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University , is exacerbating pre-existing crises.
In May, the Stop TB Partnership published a study saying that millions of people worldwide could develop tuberculosis due to the blocking measures caused by the coronavirus. The study estimated that 6.3 million people could develop TB as cases go undiagnosed and untreated between now and 2025, and 1.4 million people are forecast to die during this time.
“This situation makes me sick because (it’s) totally avoidable,” Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, said by email at the time. “We just have to keep in mind that TB, as well as other diseases, continue to affect and kill people every day, not just Covid-19.”
In the US, physicians reported troubling trends that patients who need necessary procedures or care avoid hospitals because of the pandemic. Delayed or neglected care could lead to significant health complications in the future.
And in April, the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian nongovernmental organization, warned of a “double emergency” in vulnerable countries, as Covid-19 exacerbates existing humanitarian crises, including political and economic instability.
– CNBC’s Sam Meredith and Emma Newburger contributed to this report.
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