World AIDS Day: Shifting the focus to men

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Europe

For a long time, the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS mostly focused on girls and women as the most vulnerable group, with the understanding that men would follow. This assumption had a critical flaw, as the United Nation’s AIDS program UNAIDS revealed in a new report that men are less likely to take an HIV test or undergo treatment.

The report, "Blind Spot" released to mark World AIDS Day on December 1 claims that globally antiretroviral (ARV) therapy coverage among men aged 15 and older was 47 percent in 2016, a lower rate of coverage than the 60 percent seen with women. ARV drugs are recommended to save lives and prevent the transmission of the HIV virus.

The percentage of men taking ARV drugs is alarming, as men and boys accounted for about 58 percent of the estimated one million AIDS-related deaths in 2016. This imbalance is unusually large in sub-Saharan Africa, where men and boys accounted for 41 percent of people living with HIV and 53 percent of AIDS-related deaths in 2016.

A staff member shows AIDS test strips during an event to raise awareness on World AIDS Day in Lusaka, capital of Zambia, on Dec. 1, 2016. /Xinhua/Peng Lijun‍

In the weak economy of sub-Saharan Africa, men and boys living with the disease are 20 percent less likely than women and girls to know their HIV status, and 27 percent less likely to be accessing treatment.

“Only one in three men between the ages of 20 and 44 years – the very age in which they are most likely to acquire and transmit HIV – have taken an HIV test and know their status,” report said.

In Swaziland, a country with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world also fared poorly, in terms of the gender gap in knowing their HIV status. Only, 70 percent of men living with HIV know their status, but nearly 89 percent of women know their HIV status in the country.

The report also revealed the low use of condoms in sub-Saharan African nations. Only 50 percent of men between the ages of 40-44 use condoms with a non-regular partner, while 90 percent of men aged 55-59 reported not using a condom regularly.

Reducing the spread of HIV among gay men

Experts have also turned their attention towards gay men to reduce the spread of HIV. The report highlights men who have sex with each other are 24 times more likely to acquire HIV than men in the general population.

Indian children participating in an AIDS awareness program on the eve of World AIDS Day in Calcutta, capital of eastern Indian state West Bengal, Nov. 30, 2015. World AIDS Day is observed on Dec. 1 every year as millions of people in India are infected with HIV but talking about the disease and sexual health issues in general is still largely taboo. /Xinhua/Tumpa Mondal

Drug addiction has also added to the woes – of the 11.8 million people who inject drugs, 80 percent are men, and HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs exceeds 25 percent in many countries.

The hope for this new strategy is eliminate AIDS by 2030.

In the last decade, AIDS-related deaths have declined by nearly half since it peaked in 2005 and the spread of infection has come down by 16 percent.

While eastern and southern Africa, HIV infections have declined by 29 percent since 2010 and AIDS-related deaths came down by whopping 62 percent, since the peak in 2004, infection is rising in Europe and Central Asia where infections have increased by 60 percent.

“The world will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals – which include the target of ending AIDS by 2030 – without people attaining their right to health,” Michel Sidibé Executive Director of UNAIDS said in a press statement.