WHO exec cites AIDS as guide in battling COVID

GENEVA (Reuters) — Health care systems worldwide need to upgrade to control disease transmission and cope with large numbers of sick people during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as well as future outbreaks, a top official of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday.

Speaking during a video panel session organized by the International AIDS Society, WHO Health Emergencies Program executive director Michael Ryan said world leaders grappling with the current pandemic “need to take a leaf out of the HIV/AIDS activist book” and make sure access to health care is equitable and evidence-based.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has not yet peaked in many parts of the world, has exposed weaknesses and left billions of people without reliable and affordable access to essential health services, according to Ryan.

HIV, which stands for human immunodeficiency virus, the virus that causes AIDS or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, was often a fatal infection when it emerged in the 1980s, but today is considered manageable with antiretroviral drugs.

There is no vaccine to protect a person from HIV infection, which is highly variable and cannot be eliminated by the body’s own immune response.

Researchers do expect, however, to eventually have vaccines effective against the novel coronavirus, which people can recover from on their own.

The WHO official said the two viruses are “different in scope and nature, but are comparable in so many other ways,” exposing the same inequities and generating similar injustices and denial.

“We cannot become distracted with retrospection and fingerpointing... We need to look ahead,” Ryan said.