China HIV patients risk running out of AIDS drugs in days: UNAIDS
20 February, 2020
HIV patients in China risk running out of life-saving AIDS drugs because quarantines and lockdowns targeted at containing the coronavirus disease outbreak mean they can not replenish essential medicine stocks, US AIDS agency said on Wednesday (Feb 19).
UNAIDS said it had surveyed a lot more than 1,000 persons with HIV in China and found that the outbreak of the coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, is having a "major impact" on their lives.
The outbreak up to now infected a lot more than 74,000 in China, and killed 2,004 of these. Outside China, 10 deaths and more than 800 cases have already been reported so far.
Nearly a third of the HIV positive persons surveyed by UNAIDS said lockdowns and restrictions on movement in China meant these were vulnerable to running out of their HIV treatment in the coming days.
Of the, almost half - or 48.6 % - said they didn't know where to accumulate their next antiretroviral remedy refill from.
"People coping with HIV must continue steadily to get the HIV medicines they have to keep them alive," UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement.
"We must ensure that everyone who needs HIV treatment gets it, irrespective of where they are."
UNAIDS says that according to Chinese government sources there have been around 1.25 million persons with HIV in China by the end of 2018.
One HIV-positive volunteer AIDS campaigner in China told Reuters he has set up a group chat which includes a lot more than 100 HIV patients, mostly in Hubei province - epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak - where he is helping patients to share limited stocks of medicines between them.
Some HIV patients are scared of letting other people know why they are desperate to get out of the cities.
"(Patients are) very panicked, very panicked, and in the group chat I have to comfort them constantly," said the campaigner, who didn't want to provide his name. "For patients, medicine is important, treatment is important. This may be as important as front-line relief supplies."
Adding to the situation of potential shortages is an emerging practice of men and women not infected with HIV attractive to patients with the AIDS-causing virus to talk about their medicine as potential experimental treatment against the new coronavirus.
Although there is absolutely no evidence from clinical trials, China’s National Health Commission said the HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir could possibly be tried in COVID-19 patients.
That triggered a rush for drugs such as for example Kaletra, generally known as Aluvia, which is drugmaker AbbVie's off-patent version of lopinavir/ritonavir.
UNAIDS said lockdowns in a variety of cities have also meant that persons with HIV who had travelled away from their home towns have not been able to come back home and access HIV services, including treatment, from their usual providers.
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