Those affected still live in fear and stigma

Health.. 40 years of “AIDS” .. Why was the HIV vaccine delayed

People living with HIV prefer to live in secrecy because of society's view.

À archival

When there's a visit at home, hide the medication, make excuses for your colleagues because of the regular doctor's check-ups.

In the parking lot in front of the HIV hospital, make sure no one sees you.. This is the life of Anya, who was discovered in 2014 to be infected with HIV.

"It's like a double life," Anya, 41, told dpa. Forty years ago, on June 5, 1981, the CDC in the United States first reported a mysterious new disease. Since then, little has changed in the discrimination many sufferers have faced.

Anja comes from the German state of Hesse, and is the mother of two young children. Her husband, who is also infected with HIV, is the only one who knows she is infected. Anya wants to keep her infection hidden from the public, as she fears the reaction, as happened recently in a hospital when she was taken by ambulance due to a broken bone, while the paramedic yelled at her in the emergency room, when she stated that she had HIV, And she felt she should have mentioned it right away. But Anya knows she doesn't have to. If the HIV infection is treated well, the viral load is too low to be detected anymore. This way, people with HIV cannot infect others.

For her part, Annette Haberl of the German Association for AIDS Patients said: “People with HIV face this problem every day... Do I tell the employer, and friends, do I hide the medicine from the children?

What if I get to know someone, should I tell them immediately?”, adding that there are still prejudices in the medical field as well: “Finding a dentist can be difficult.

There is always a fear of rejection that accompanies the injured.”

Sometimes Anya thinks of speaking openly about her infection, but then says: “What if I was treated as if I had the plague?

What if children were treated like those with leprosy?

It's hard for someone who has to combat such fears...then one becomes so psychologically unstable that they will take it for granted,” she said, adding that despite the availability of good medicine, there was still a fear of the disease spreading.

For his part, virologist and AIDS researcher, Hendrik Strick, who has also become a well-known expert on the Corona virus, said: “Stigma and discrimination are one of the reasons why the AIDS pandemic has not ended globally, even 40 years after its appearance.

We could have contained the pandemic much better than we already have.”

Streeck pointed out that the consequences of the Corona pandemic on HIV infections cannot yet be expected.

But how was an anti-Corona vaccine developed so quickly, when it did not happen for HIV over 40 years?

Virologist Josef Eberle, of the Max von Pettenkofer Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology in Munich, explained that it was two different types of viruses.

He added that the Corona virus changes relatively slowly, while the HIV virus changes very quickly: “In just four to six weeks, many HIV variants develop in only one person infected with it, in a way that is not even comparable to what happens with the Corona virus in all over the world within a year.

At the same time, in the case of the Corona virus, antibodies such as stickers can be “attached” to the key to the virus of the cell, which prevents its infiltration, “as with HIV, the surface proteins on the virus are very hidden.”

Sentenced to death

Anya hopes that there will be more talk about HIV, so that people will learn that there is no danger from those infected with it, adding that there should also be better training in the medical field.

She stated that she herself felt when she learned of the diagnosis "like a death sentence", and cursed her husband, who transmitted the infection to her.

But she also had to get rid of her prejudices first and learn to live with the virus. “The kids saved my life,” she asserted.

June 5, 1981, for the first time, a center in the United States reported a mysterious new disease.

• Corona virus changes relatively slowly, while HIV changes very quickly.

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