Official statistics tell us:
“The total number of Russians infected with HIV registered in the Russian Federation as of December 31, 2015 reached 1,006,388 people (according to preliminary data as of 2016-02-02). Of these, 212,579 HIV-infected died for various reasons, incl. 27,564 in 2015 (12.9% more than in the same period in 2014) according to the monitoring form of Rospotrebnadzor “Information on measures to prevent HIV infection, hepatitis B and C, identification and treatment of HIV patients”.
In Russia, now there is no mandatory screening for HIV infection, which means that we can firmly state that the real number of carriers is at least twice as high as the cases detected. HIV, given its modes of transmission and importance, is a social disease, just like tuberculosis or syphilis. Attempts to rid society of such diseases, one way or another, oppose the interests of the individual (the carrier of the infection) and the surrounding healthy people. And this means that treatment involves an impact on society as a whole, and on public consciousness, which means that measures against the epidemic should capture not only the medical, but also the political field.
What is happening in the public mind about this? How is such a dangerous threat reflected in it? Let's list a few facts about HIV and try to speculate about its spread, as well as about what factors prevent the epidemic from developing.
Let's start with the fact that HIV is not the first such infection on the path of human development. There are enough "scars" from such infections on the human genome. HIV is a slow, low-contagious infection, fortunately for humanity. Until our time, HIV-like diseases were limitedly spreading and carried out a "cleanup" of humanity, destroying sensitive individuals before the infection became widespread in the population.
Today HIV therapy has been developed and is quite effective. Despite the fact that it does not cure to the end, it can significantly (10-20 years) increase the lifespan of the carrier, even at the stage of his development of AIDS.
The viral load and lifespan of the host are key to the spread of infection. The lower the load (fewer viral particles in the blood), the less contagious a person is. In this aspect, existing therapy significantly reduces the risk of infecting others, and for this reason alone should be used in the interests of healthy people. An alternative to such a soft way of struggle is only a cruel screening out of carriers and a complete limitation of contact with healthy people. Everyone understands perfectly well that this is not only inhuman, but also practically unfeasible, since the epidemic has long covered tens of millions of people (about 40 million confirmed carriers around the world, in some countries up to 10% of the population).
At the same time, since 1991, the World Health Organization has published recommendations on the fight against AIDS, in which it "categorically objected to any type of mandatory HIV testing as an unjustified violation of human rights." Three times WHO sent comments to the draft Russian law. At the beginning of April 1994, the European Court ruled that compulsory HIV testing violates the European Convention on Human Rights (note that this is not even about the isolation of mortally dangerous patients, but only about their statistics). This is the current situation with screening in Russia, despite the fact that since 2006 in the United States, for example, every citizen is obliged to take an HIV test once a year.
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We see in the example of HIV a paradoxical situation with human rights, in which in many countries the rights of healthy people not to get infected are practically ignored, with the exception, perhaps, of the promotion of protected sex. There are no precedents in history for this approach: the rights of carriers of the plague or any other deadly disease have always been limited in favor of healthy people, this was considered an epidemic norm.
In addition to official organizations that hold an ambiguous position, they come to the fore in the information field, etc. HIV dissidents. These are communities that are very active on social networks, denying HIV as such and the threat it poses. Their performance is impressive! It is these communities that come out first in the search for keywords, the leaders of these communities gather at conferences with impunity, have access to politicians, the church and other public institutions.
I will cite one of these communities as an example. It is led by a certain Aleksey Starostenko, the president of the self-proclaimed foundation. He himself speaks of his activities as follows: “You can say for sure that I saved 200-300 people from treatment. This is all over Russia. From Kursk, maybe two or three. I also bought the domain of the regional AIDS center and redirected it to the website of my Recover Foundation."
According to him, a woman recently called in the hope of talking to doctors, but she heard from him advice not to continue treatment. In addition, Starostenko is actively promoting his views in all major social networks and on the Youtube channel. On VKontakte alone, his group of HIV deniers has 2,000 subscribers.
“Do your part in the fight against pseudoscience and genocide - join our groups,” invites the main page of “Recovery”. - Tell in your own words and send links to this site to your friends and acquaintances. Tell them that the HIV virus does not exist in nature, and AIDS does not have a viral origin. It is almost impossible to stop this genocide without your help! " The words highlighted in red: "Do not test for HIV!", "Do not get vaccinated!"
Each year, such communities hold conferences at which journalists, "scientists", and church representatives speak. Thus, not only the healthy and the sick, but also the fighters against the epidemic and their opponents are equalized in rights.
These obscurantists simply deceive people, using their desperate situation and belief in a miracle. Thus, instead of actually alleviating their situation, they kill HIV patients, and also endanger the lives of healthy people. Such pseudo-scientific movements will spread more and more with the fall of the educational and intellectual level of people. And real opposition to them can be provided only by enlightening the masses.