Due giorni fa, c'è stato ad Atlanta un incontro fra attivisti e CDC - accusati di essere "missing in action" - per chiedere alle autorità sanitarie di farsi maggiore carico della prevenzione dell'infezione, soprattutto nei gruppi maggiormente a rischio (MSM e donne transgender):
- - parlando di sesso e sessualità in modo più aperto,
- incrementando i test nelle popolazioni a rischio e
- acquisendo all'interno delle strategie di prevenzione gli strumenti farmacologici che oggi sono disponibili (TasP - Treatment as Prevention, PrEP - Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis e PEP - Post-Exposure Prophylaxis).
Questo l'esordio dei Principi di Atlanta:
- Researchers from the Emory School of Public Health recently released an estimate: 12% of young black gay men in Atlanta become infected with HIV each year. In the cohort studied, a man who becomes sexually active at age 18 has a 60% chance of seroconverting by the time he’s 30. The most recent figures on the wider epidemic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which makes its home in Atlanta— are almost as alarming. Over a two-year period new infections rose by about 12% among all men who have sex with men (MSM, a category that includes transgender women), and by 22% for young MSM. A gay man was thirty times likelier to become HIV-positive than a straight man. Though domestic data on transgender people are not strong enough to cite with confidence, international figures tell us of a significant rise in new cases of HIV among transgender women. Last month a prominent NIH researcher summarized long-term HIV incidence data to an audience at Columbia University: “Among MSM,” he said, “new HIV infections are out of control.”
Questo un articolo scritto da Jim Eigo pochi giorni fa per l'Huffington Post:
The Neverending Epidemic: And How We Can End It
- We cannot accept a neverending HIV epidemic. We cannot accept that every year in the United States we add 50,000 new HIV infections. We cannot accept that the number of new infections, while dropping for almost every other demographic, is on the rise for gay men and transgender women. The burden of infection in queer communities is already far too heavy. We have more means of preventing HIV than ever. So how is it that, for us, the epidemic in new infections just gets worse?
We cannot accept that in a single year 12% of the young black gay men of Atlanta acquire HIV infection, a rate higher than any we find in any wealthy nation. Atlanta is the home of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal agency charged with keeping the nation healthy. Clearly something is going wrong. That's why several members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP NY are going to Atlanta. On June 9, along with our friends from Treatment Action Group (TAG) and allies from local Atlanta groups that deal with HIV, we'll meet with officials from CDC. At the meeting we'll deliver our critique of CDC's HIV prevention efforts, issue a call for change and propose concrete reforms. (continua qui)
Riporto solo l'intervento di James Krellenstein, ACT UP/NY, perché è molto breve e molto chiaro. Ma potete ascoltare altri interventi qui: Activists blame ‘complacent’ CDC for new HIV epidemic.
Comunicato stampa di TAG: ACT UP to Tom Frieden: You’re MIA on HIV - New Infections on the Rise in Key Subpopulations, Despite Options for Prevention