The true or false junior responds to preconceived ideas about HIV and AIDS

In the true or false junior, students ask us questions about the modes of transmission of HIV, the treatments that allow you to live with HIV and the means to protect yourself from this disease.

This Friday, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. On this occasion, students from the Jules-Ferry colleges in Essonne, La Providence in Revel and a teenager from the public health establishment in Antony question us about the origin of the virus, the difference between HIV and AIDS, the modes of transmission, the ways of living with and the situation elsewhere in the world. To answer them, we are accompanied by Bastien Vibert, head of HIV programs at Crips d’Île-de-France.

HIV and AIDS, two different concepts

Arellys read that “HIV and AIDS are two different things” and she wonders if it’s true.

Yes, it’s true, we must distinguish the two. On the one hand, there is HIV, for human immunodeficiency virus, in other words, it is a virus that weakens the immune system. On the other hand, there is AIDS which is an advanced stage of the disease caused by HIV. When we reach this stage, we begin to develop signs of infection or certain cancers, for example.

Conspiracy theories about the origins of HIV

Juliette wonders if it’s true”that AIDS was created by an American laboratory“.

Bastien Vibert replies that it is “Something you see on the internet, but it’s fake news, it’s false.” We also sometimes read that HIV “would be a virus which would have been introduced by certain WHO vaccination campaigns.“All this is “fake”insists Bastien Vibert, “For several years, we have known how the virus passed from an animal to humans, we know the origins, the first identified cases date from 1981 and the discovery of the virus dates from 1983, so 40 years ago.”

No, you don’t transmit HIV by kissing

Sidaction, with Ifop, is publishing this week the results of an annual survey on young people’s preconceived ideas about AIDS. In particular, we learn that 30% of 15-24 year olds still think that AIDS can be transmitted by kissing an HIV-positive person, therefore someone living with HIV. This is obviously false. Louise wonders, for her part “if it’s true that breast milk can transmit AIDS” and Léon wonders “if AIDS can be a hereditary disease.“

No, HIV is not hereditary, there are no genetic factors. On the other hand, breast milk is part “body fluids that may contain the virusexplains Bastien Vibert. HIV can be transmitted through certain other bodily fluids of an HIV-positive person, blood, semen and vaginal fluids. explains Bastien Vibert.

So the modes of transmission of HIV are unprotected sexual relations, this includes fellatio or cunnilingus, the exchange of syringes where there will be contact with blood and finally from the mother to the child, when the latter is not under treatment. Apart from these cases, you cannot catch or transmit HIV. Finally, no, the bite of an insect, in particular a mosquito, cannot transmit HIV, even if it has bitten an HIV-positive person beforehand, HIV is a strictly human virus.

You can live with HIV, but you can’t cure it

Olivia wonders if it’s true”that AIDS cannot be cured” and Hugo asks if it’s true”that AIDS can be cured today.

Thanks to advances in research, a person can today live with HIV thanks to treatment, which is one to two capsules per day to take. On the other hand, there is no cure for AIDS, so to live with it, you must be screened as early as possible and thus have access to this treatment throughout your life.

An HIV-positive person on treatment does not transmit HIV

Alicia saw on TikTok “that AIDS could no longer be transmitted by people with AIDS if they were under treatment” and she wonders if it’s true.

Bastien Vibert replied that “It’s true, people who carry HIV, if they are under treatment, cannot infect their partners. Science has proven this for fifteen years, with international and national studies on this fact.”

Bastien Vibert explains “that the treatment that the person takes on a daily basis will make it possible to very significantly lower the viral load or the quantity of virus in the blood and as a result, the virus will remain locked in the person’s body, that is what we call it “i equals i: Undetectable equals untransmittable.”

And this treatment is free, 100% covered in France, which is not the case everywhere in the world.

25% of HIV-positive people worldwide do not have access to treatment

Clémence wonders if it is true that “the treatment is not supported by all countries.”

Bastien Vibert replies that it is true and it is even according to him “an injustice which is the lack of access to treatment for 25% of HIV-positive people in the world, therefore 10 million people since there are 40 million people living with HIV in the world“.

This therefore represents 10 million people who do not have access to treatment. “and who are therefore in danger of death”. Bastien Vibert explains that associations have been fighting against this inequality for a long time and he hopes “one day reach 100% of HIV-positive people who will have access to treatment”.

Condoms are not the only way to protect against transmission

Aurèle asks us if he is “true that condoms are really free“.

Yes, it’s true, since last January, under 26s have had free access to external, so-called male, condoms in pharmacies. Bastien Vibert welcomes this progress, but notes a small limit to this, because “internal condoms, called female condoms, are not free. This will certainly be the subject of a request from associations to make all types of condoms free to allow each person to use the method of prevention that suits them best..”

There is also another way to protect yourself from HIV, Prep. This is a medicine to be taken every day and which allows HIV-negative people, who are not living with HIV, to be protected against this virus whatever happens. Just talk to your doctor who will prescribe it for you.