Status: 01.12.2021 10:25 a.m.
For decades, infection with the HI virus was equivalent to a death sentence. But in the meantime medicine has made enormous strides. Those affected lead a normal life in the western world these days. Nevertheless, sick people are still heavily stigmatized – this is also what World AIDS Day draws attention to.
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Like so many people these days, Axel Wedler is currently working from home. The hamburger has a pot of tea on his desk next to the green houseplant. The laundry is still drying on the drying rack in front of the window. The next video conference is about to start. The 58-year-old is a senior manager at the IT consulting company IBM. Wedler leads a completely normal life today. It looked different in 2002.
VIDEO: Corona pandemic endangers success in fighting AIDS (1 min)
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Sudden illness – then the shock diagnosis
At that time Wedler suddenly became seriously ill, the cause was found more or less by chance: an infection with the HI virus. Wedler had caught it four years earlier while on vacation in the Caribbean. He received a blood transfusion there after a sports injury. As it turned out in retrospect, it was contaminated with the HI virus. The problem: the Caribbean variant of the virus could not be detected as standard at the time. After various stays in hospital and visits to the doctor, a doctor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf was able to pinpoint the cause of Wedler’s poor condition. The diagnosis was a shock, says Wedler. He didn’t expect it at all. In addition, he had already broken out with AIDS. The disease is accompanied by an enormous weakening of the immune system – a certain death sentence at the time.
The virus can no longer be detected in the blood
“The doctors told me to my face, ‘If we don’t treat you, you will die within a few weeks or months. If we can treat you, you will be lucky enough to live another four to five years’.” That was almost twenty years ago. Because of the enormous medical progress, Wedler is doing much better and his immune system has recovered. The virus can no longer be detected in his blood – it is also no longer transferable. He only takes one tablet a day, an incredible relief. At the beginning he had to take 14 tablets a day, at different times of the day, sometimes without combining them with food or drink. Thanks to the new drugs, a normal sex life or family planning is no longer a problem for HIV patients.
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