engleski

Ending HIV/AIDS in Southeast Europe: what are the challenges?

There is a strong global consensus that the tools now exist to end the AIDS epidemic. This confidence is based on a combination of major scientific breakthroughs and accumulated lessons learned over more than a decade of scaling up the AIDS response worldwide. HIV treatment can dramatically extend the lifespan of people living with HIV and effectively prevent HIV transmission. There are also many proven opportunities for HIV prevention beyond medicines, including condoms, behavior change and programmes with key populations. Key step to “The End of AIDS” is epidemic control which means reduction of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity or mortality to a locally acceptable level as a result of deliberate intervention measures. This is a point where HIV no longer represents a public health threat and no longer among the leading causes of country’s disease burden. Southeastern European countries have a lowGlevel HIVGepidemic. However, there is still an increasing number of newly diagnosed HIV infections in recent years. Patterns of HIV transmission in southeastern Europe indicate that men who have sex with men (MSM) bear the highest burden of HIV. It is difficult to apply the concept of „the end of AIDS“ to settings with a lowGlevel epidemic. In such settings the definition of „epidemiologic control” should include the absence of an increasing trend over time. The major challenges are how to increase early HIV diagnosis, how to have effective targeted testing for key populations and fighting stigma. There is also still an issue of sustainable treatment (without stockouts) and availability of antiretrovirals.

Southeast Europe; HIV/AIDS

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