40 years ago an infectious disease changed the world. In 2020 another infectious disease altered it again.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic and Covid-19 have had a different nature, magnitude and scope, but great similarity in terms of impact on society and health, highlighting the mistakes made and the structural problems of our health system.
“Have we learned something from the management of both health crises?”, they ask from the Spanish AIDS Research Network (RIS).
The answer to the question has been provided by 11 experts from various fields of public health and civil society in a documentary film: ‘Walks with Science: HIV and COVID 19. Two epidemics face to face’.
“People say that the COVID-19 pandemic is much more terrible and it seems to me that, in part, it comes from oblivion. For those of us who lived through the AIDS epidemic, the impact was extraordinary, because it was much more exhausting and lasted much longer.
compares Dr. Santiago Moreno, Head of the Infectious Diseases Service at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital.
The film compares the situation that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s with the current one in order to improve public policies and the response to SARS-CoV-2, as well as for future similar health emergencies.
HIV and Covid-19 face to face
The two epidemics generated fear, bewilderment and a health emergency situation that brought health to the fore.
The difference between the two has been the society of each time and the scientific advance of the moment.
«The AIDS pandemic was much more exhausting than the Covid one. I remember very hard years. This has been strong, but different»
says Dr. Santiago Moreno
The documentary directs the subject to the comparison of the performance at the moment in which AIDS appears with the new covid epidemic, being reflected “the failures committed as a society, as health authorities and health professionals”.
“We were not prepared to face research challenges in the face of this type of health problem. This requires money and infrastructure that we do not have”
holds the doctor.
Pandemic Information Management
The information at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS pandemic arrived late compared to the information transmitted about covid-19.
The experts participating in the documentary analyze this management in both pandemics.
On the one hand, the media associated the HIV pandemic “with gay men, using denigrating terminology such as gay cancer,” he says. Juanse Hernández, Coordinator of the NGO Working Group on HIV Treatments (gTt-HIV).
In the case of covid-19, information management has taken another course: “immediacy regardless of relevance.”
«The fact is that there has been so much information that an infoxication has occurred: an increase in information that does not allow the person to sift through to determine which is the most important for their health. It happens so quickly and in such a messy way that you don’t have time to sift through what’s important and what isn’t.”
explains the coordinator of gTt-HIV.
For her part, Dr. Maria Jose Fuster has exposed the “sensationalism” in the way of communicating in the Spanish media.
“There has to be another way of reporting that doesn’t generate a sense of fear and a sense of threat all the time. And here there is a clear parallel with HIV… the words, for example, there is a dehumanization of data, I have not heard any media say ‘today there are 700 new people with coronavirus’ they always talk about ‘infected’».
María José Fuster, executive director of the scientific society Seisida.
The doctor Julia del Amo, director of the National Plan on AIDSmakes it clear that this pandemic has shown “that we have low-quality data and that they arrive late”, making it necessary to invest “in information systems to have an improvement in the quality of the data”.
“Communication is important in the field of public health because people do not reject what they know and understand. People can change our behavior if we understand that it is done for our own good and to be able to do it we have to understand it»
Julia del Amo.
science time
Society has demanded speed from science in terms of providing solutions in the current pandemic, a pressure that has been added to the competition to have the scoop by scientific groups.
“Society must understand that the results of research are not magical, but rather the result of scientific work,” emphasizes Esteban Martínez, a doctor and researcher at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.
This same demand from society has not been so demanded in the HIV epidemic, which 40 years later still does not have a vaccine.
“If the same resources and efforts dedicated to the covid vaccine were used for the HIV vaccine, the process would be accelerated, but not at the same speed that has been achieved with covid-19 because they are totally different viruses,”
exposes the doctor Beatriz Mothe, clinical physician at the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital.
The doctor emphasizes the importance of learning in these situations.
The coronavirus has thrown something positive on science and that is that “without research we would not be where we are today, vaccinating and diagnosing. The pandemic has put science in a more relevant place in society.”
Lack of resources
Mercedes Morales and Mayca Gomez They are nurses at the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid. Her experiences in both the HIV and covid-19 epidemics coincide in that the health system is in need of resources.
“Health is not something isolated, it is the set of many things. A society that does not care for the people who care for them is going to affect health»
says nurse Mayca Goméz.
The shadow of the investigation
Science has been the key to returning to normality. The joint response of organizations and scientists has made it possible to move towards the light at the end of the tunnel of the covid pandemic.
The shadow of science in Spain prevents further progress in this sector, because “investment in science is ridiculous” and the loss of “younger generations” is increasing, exposes José Alcamí, researcher at the AIDS Immunopathology Unit of the Carlos III Institute.
“The solution will be scientific or it will not be. That solution will be solidary or it will not be. The solution is either global or it will be a false solution»
researcher Jose Alcami.
Stigma between pandemics
In HIV, discrimination has been for years an issue to eradicate for all organizations and associations dedicated to improving the lives of people with this disease.
“HIV is a tangible health threat and we are programmed to avoid the disease. But it is also a symbolic threat to traditional beliefs, associating itself with a series of behaviors considered deviant in those years»
exposes María José Fuster, executive director of the scientific society Seisida.
“Much remains to be done,” claims the President of CESIDA Ramón Espacioswho affects discrimination today to the point that those affected by HIV “continue to live in solitude and shame.”
“There are still 50-odd countries in the world to which you cannot travel as a person with HIV”
emphasizes the president of CESIDA.
Covid-19 has suffered its inequality in the health field, since those who are considered the “heroes of the pandemic” are accused by others as “accomplices” of it.
“We have gone from heroes to villains without giving ourselves time to meditate. They say we tell things that are lies»
nurse Mayca maintains.
All the statements highlight a common point: the importance of science and scientific structures as a response to health crises.
As the infectious disease expert Santiago Moreno says, pandemics will continue to arrive and we must be prepared, but this will not be possible if we do not take into account that “the solution will be scientific or it will not be” (researcher José Alcamí).
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