Diabetes, high BP kill faster than HIV

HIV has a much lower impact on survival and life expectancy than cancer, severe diabetes or nasty high blood pressure. person with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is likely to live longer than the one with severe diabetes or high blood pressure. While AIDS virus cuts life by five years if contracted in 20s, when compared to, say, diabetes, which takes away 10-15 years, if developed when a person is in 40s. India has 2.39 million people living with HIV, and 50.8 million with diabetes. “New medicines have transformed HIV from a death sentence into a chronic disease that has a very, very small impact on your life expectancy if you start treatment early and do not smoke, drink or have diabetes,“ says Dr Charles Gilks, UNAIDS country coordinator for India. “HIV has a much lower impact on survival and life expectancy than cancer, severe diabetes or nasty high blood pressure.“ This is borne out from survival data from North America and Europe, which, says Gilks, holds true even for less developed countries such as India, where malnutrition lowers immunity further and puts people with HIV at higher risk of infections such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. HIV wrecks the body's immune system to the point where it cannot fight off common bacterial, viral and fungal infections, which eventually cause death. HIV drugs keep the virus levels down. India treats 4.48 lakh people free under a national programme. The cost of antiretroviral therapy (ART) used to treat HIV is the cheapest in India, with first-line treatment costing the government R5,000/person/year, and secondline therapy -for people with immunity against the first-line drugs -priced at R29,000/person/year. About 26,000 people are on second-line treatment. “Currently, 4.48 lakh people get free ART under the national programme in 324 centres across India. Everyone who needs treatment is being treated free under the government programme, there is no waiting,“ said Dr BB Rewari, national programme officer, the National AIDS Control Organisation, India (NACO). Estimates for people living with HIV were halved in India, from a peak of 5.7 million in 2006 to the current 2.39 million at the end of 2009, the latest year for which data is available. The UN credits the downward trend to both improved data collection methods and an actual fall in new infections. “With HIV data staying under 2.5 million for over 5 years in India, complacency should not set in, as it did in North America, where infection has shot up among vulnerable groups, such as injecting drug users and men who have sex with men,“ says Dr Charles Gilks, UNAIDS Country Coordinator for India. Investments in ART programmes benefits economic activity and labour-force productivity, with gains expected to reach up to $34 billion and 18.5 million life years in lowand middle-income countries by 2020, said the UNAIDS Report on Global HIV/AIDS Response 2011, which was released on Wednesday. This more than offsets the costs of free ART programmes. Following the global financial crisis, international funding for HIV programmes fell in 2010. Current annual funding is estimated to be $16 billion, well below the $22-24 billion needed annually by 2015. source :hindustan times  Ankit