Today is the World AIDS Day, and HIV activism efforts helped people living with HIV get affected by the coronavirus pandemic as little as possible and shaped the fight with the pandemic as well. After a year of struggle against the coronavirus, loud “thank you” should go to another group, the physicians and health professionals who have faced the pandemic at the forefront since the first day.
We have all been experiencing the most different and surprising World AIDS Day of all times. We started our words with “HIV which has caused one of the most serious outbreaks of humanity has not yet been identified for forty years, but we are close to a lasting scientific solution” in the last year’s statement and continued with “the tools like B equals B, PrEP, ART to stop HIV today are spectacular. Which means, HIV has changed a lot!” And now, we are all about to end the year 2020 in an atmosphere which no exceptions we are all experiencing and trying to overcome one of the pandemics that the humanity has faced. If we look closely at the efforts of HIV activism in the context of the coronavirus pandemic that deeply affects each one’s lives, we can easily say that this productive activism movement, which has nearly forty years of experience, is again highly productive and successful. And we can proudly say that global and local HIV activism efforts helped people living with HIV get affected by the coronavirus pandemic as little as possible and shaped the fight with the pandemic as well.
GRATEFUL TO HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
But at this point, we think that an underlined and loud “thank you” should go to another group, the physicians and health professionals who have faced the pandemic at the forefront since the first day. Even under severe pandemic conditions, physicians and health professionals -in Turkey, as it was all around the world- kept providing comprehensive services to people living with HIV and also continued to explain at every opportunity that HIV is everybody else’s matter in society. We are so grateful to them. We will end the coronavirus pandemic first, and then HIV, together with their high diligence and close cooperation. Despite the fact that severe pandemic conditions has revolutionizes our lives and the world, we would like to repeat with the same belief that there is no restriction to stop HIV! We have all the tools, experienced physicians, well organized health system, productive civil society, enough knowledge, capacity and aspiration. We can reach out to the 90-90-90 targets identified by *UNAIDS by working together and remove Turkey from the list of the countries where HIV is spreading rapidly. So, considering the World AIDS Days as an opportunity, one again we invite all the stakeholders -as we did last year- to work in cooperation to; -Remove legal barriers to anonymous testing, -Make PrEP, which is an effective transmission prevention method, easily accessible throughout the country, -Make new scientific developments like U=U be well-known and spoken in health institutions. Because we know it very well that after all these commune efforts, humanity will win, but HIV will lose! Red Ribbon Istanbul** #redribbonistanbul - #hivhaschanged - #hivwilllose For previous years statements; www.hivcokdegisti.org ** Leading and reliable Turkish HIV information source. For detailed information: www.kirmizikurdele.org/english