LONDON / BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Reuters) – HIV patients in China are at risk of running out of vital AIDS drugs because quarantines and isolates, intended to contain the coronavirus outbreak, prevent them from replenishing drug stores vital, the United Nations agency for AIDS said Wednesday.
Health workers prepare traditional Chinese medicine (MTC) in an MTC hospital while the country is affected by an outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Binzhou, Shandong Province, China, on February 5, 2020. Photo taken on February 5 from 2020. cnsphoto via REUTERS
UNAIDS said it had surveyed more than 1,000 people with HIV in China and concluded that the outbreak of the coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, is having a “big impact” on their lives.
The outbreak has so far infected more than 74,000 in China, and killed 2,004 people. Outside of China, 5 deaths and 827 cases have been recorded so far.
Nearly a third of HIV-positive people surveyed by UNAIDS said that closures and displacement restrictions in China meant that they ran the risk of running out of HIV treatment in the coming days.
Of them, almost half, or 48.6%, said they did not know where to pick up their next replacement of antiretroviral therapy.
“People living with HIV should continue to receive the HIV medications they need to stay alive,” UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement. “We must ensure that everyone who needs HIV treatment receives it, no matter where they are.”
UNAIDS says that, according to Chinese government sources, it is estimated that at the end of 2018 there were 1.25 million HIV-positive people in China.
A seropositive volunteer from the AIDS campaign in China told Reuters that he has created a “chat” group that includes more than 100 HIV patients, mostly in Hubei province – the center of the COVID-19 outbreak – where It is helping patients share with each other the limited drug reserves.
Some HIV patients are afraid to let other people know why they are desperate to leave the cities.
“The patients are very scared, very scared, and in the chat I have to comfort them constantly,” said the activist, who declined to give his name. “For patients, medicine is important, treatment is important. This could be as important as first aid supplies. ”
To the problem of possible shortage is an emerging practice of people not infected with HIV that appeals to patients with the AIDS virus to share their medications as a possible experimental treatment against the new coronavirus.
Although there is no evidence from clinical trials, the National Health Commission of China said the HIV medicine lopinavir / ritonavir could be tested in patients with COVID-19.
Information from Kate Kelland in London and Roxanne Liu in Beijing; edited by Steve Orlofsky; translated by Andrea Ariet in the writing of Gdansk
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