In Brittany, some 4,000 people living with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the pathogen that causes a chronic infection that progresses to AIDS, are treated. Nearly 80 new contaminations are detected in one year, but nearly 30% of people screened are detected when they have a severe immune deficiency or symptoms of AIDS.
“Screening is still too late in relation to the infection, notes Anne Le Fèvre, doctor at the Regional Health Agency (ARS), and therefore to its care. » Today, however, this allows people to live for a very long time with HIV: nearly 30% of people monitored in Brittany are over 60 years old and the oldest is 94 years old.
If in 2020, the HIV serology rate in Brittany (61 per 1000 inhabitants) was equivalent to that of 2017 and 1.15 times lower than that of metropolitan France (excluding Ile-de-France), the ARS considers it essential of “detecting people most likely to be in contact with HIV earlier”.
180 self-tests sent home
While France aims to eradicate the virus in 2030, ARS Bretagne wants to accelerate “proximity screening” undertaken for several years, as on the Pride March organized in Rennes by the LGBTI + center (lesbian, gay, bi, transgender and intersex). Two assets are at her disposal: the free self-test that she used a lot during the Covid epidemic. “We have sent 180 to their homes since 2021, most of them to people in rural areas, which are far from all the screening centers”, emphasizes Hadija Chanvril, of the Coordinating Committee for the fight once morest sexually transmitted infections and the human immunodeficiency virus (Corevih). In addition, ARS Bretagne can now rely on the possibility of being tested free of charge, and without a prescription, in any medical biology laboratory in France, since 1is January 2022.
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Sexual orientations: fight once morest discrimination
During Sexual Health Week, from May 30 to June 5, 2022, many free screening and communication operations around sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are organized in the regionthanks to the networking of public authorities and associations. “The challenge is to allow as many people as possible to have as much information as possible on the subject, underlines Anthony Le Bot, deputy director of the ARS. It is also to contribute to the extinction of HIV by communicating and fighting once morest discrimination once morest sexual orientation. »
Car ” in Brittany, recalls Mathieu Stéphant, president of the association for the fight once morest HIV and viral hepatitis Aides, there are still health professionals who refuse HIV-positive people”.
Contact : https://www.bretagne.ars.sante.fr
