FRANCE 24 English published this video item, entitled “The impact of Covid-19 on HIV care in France” – below is their description.
It’s been 40 years since HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was first detected. At the time, French scientists and doctors played a major role in isolating and understanding the virus. With at least 173,000 people still living with HIV nationwide today, research continues into finding a vaccine and a cure, despite somewhat limited funds. To find out more about the situation in France four decades on and the impact of Covid-19 on caring for HIV patients, we speak to Aurélien Beaucamp, president of the French NGO AIDES.
FRANCE 24 English YouTube Channel
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In This Story: HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of Lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.
Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype. In most cases, HIV is a sexually transmitted infection and occurs by contact with or transfer of blood, pre-ejaculate, semen, and vaginal fluids. Research has shown (for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples) that HIV is untransmittable through condomless sexual intercourse if the HIV-positive partner has a consistently undetectable viral load.
Non-sexual transmission can occur from an infected mother to her infant during pregnancy, during childbirth by exposure to her blood or vaginal fluid, and through breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.
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