HIV, Aids and society : The battle against ignorance about Aids continues

36.5 million Infected, 35 million Deaths – HIV, Aids, a scourge of humanity. Until today. It was also the dread disease rather of the eighties and early nineties, the horror is now moderate, not every the situation is currently. But all the same, the handling has become very much a sovereign.

in 1987, two years before the fall of the wall. Visit of Federal Minister of health, Rita Süssmuth, CDU, in her home town in the Rhine city of Neuss. There should be a conversation, resulting in an Interview. This happens – but only after a phone call from Süssmuth with Franz Josef Strauss, then-CSU leader. It is so loud that Strauss’ voice is heard in the distance. It's about Aids:. And to Süssmuths liberal attitude.

politicians fueled the panic

In the Public was stirred up to that time, sometimes literally panic – unfortunately of the policy. Think of the infamous proposals of Peter Gauweiler, a Secretary of state under Strauss in Bavaria, the forced tests, and secretions. Or the then emerging CSU members of Parliament, Horst Seehofer, of the Aids-Sick "wanted to collect in special homes". He spoke of "focus", his party colleague Erich Riedl of the "secrete", reported the "mirror" of that time.

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it was the great merit of the Süssmuth, HIV out of the taboo zone and brought to any baiting to an end: "Give Aids no Chance", and "Mach" are one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. They also made possible a more intensive research on HIV – and a new social conversation about sexuality as a whole.

Today, three decades later, HIV lost to terror, because there are new forms of therapy and effective drugs. HIV is still not curable, for a long time but on the way to a treatable chronic disease. If the infection is detected early, it is even very treatable: patients have the prospect of a long life without serious illness, without Aids breaks out. No one has more reason to fear that the infection means a death sentence.

3000 new infections per year

Known all this but it is unfortunately still far too few people in Germany. HIV-Infected can infect under the treatment is successful, anyone, know, according to a survey, only ten percent of the population. Similarly, many of you are probably familiar with the tablets for the prophylaxis that can prevent infection and which are approved recently, also in Germany.

And so remains a strange imbalance: While the disease is in this country under control, many are still locked in the horror scenarios of the eighties. Especially the AfD, most recently, a speech in the Bundestag. What is reminiscent of the prophecy of Chancellor Helmut Kohl from 1987, warned of a hysteria "worse than Chernobyl" and that a party could have the right to receive from the Union a strong boost to the write a tough crackdown against people with Aids on their Flag.

HIV remains, therefore, with the Stigma and shame associated; to come out of the closet about in the workplace as HIV-positive, is likely to be for many an unfortunately all too large of a risk. To combat the ignorance and thus the uncertainty in the issue of HIV is therefore one of the most urgent tasks. For the benefit of the patient and also for the benefit of (as Yet)Non-Infected.

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world-Aids-day-HIV and Aids Are ripe for the Museum?

Tobias Sauer

gaps in knowledge about routes of Transmission and subsequent gaps in knowledge about symptoms are still a major reason that more nearly 3000 people per year nationwide plug – in and some much too late of their infection. Still the Robert-Koch Institute, 11,400 people in Germany, who do not know of their infection, according to estimates.