According to Public Health France, 5,000 people discovered they were HIV positive in 2021. A lower figure than in previous years, but an illusion, estimates Professor Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department of the Tenon hospital in Paris, at due to the decline in the number of screenings in France, in particular due to the health crisis. In the show Well done for youdiscusses the best ways to protect yourself from HIV infection, which can affect all age groups.
The condom, the cornerstone
Above all, the first way to defend yourself against the AIDS virus is to use a condom, explains Gilles Pialoux, who regrets that only 34% of young people “use it during their first sexual intercourse”. “We have created this tool which is the condom and which is effective in any case. It protects against other sexually transmitted infections, and it is not an old tool”, he adds to the microphone of Julia Vignali and Melanie Gomez.
For him, this “effective” tool remains the cornerstone in the fight against HIV.
Accessible preventive treatment
Professor Gilles Pialoux also proposes a preventive treatment, PrEP, for “pre-exposure prophylaxis”. “This is for people who are not contaminated and who take a set of generic active products in a single tablet. And anyone who thinks they are at risk can access PrEP”, explains the head of service of the Tenon hospital, adding that “for a little more than a year, (this treatment) can be prescribed in the city by the general practitioner”.
Gilles Pialoux states that there are two therapeutic plans: “Some people take a tablet every day and those who take it on demand”. And add that PrEP “saves lives because it prevents HIV contamination with an efficiency rate of over 96%”.
Why you should get tested
Finally, in the show Well done for you, the professor, also a member of the French Society to Fight AIDS, supports screening, which is down largely due to Covid-19. “If you are screened (positive), you are cured. And if you are cured, you are no longer a contaminant, so you break the chain of contamination,” explains the professor on Europa 1.
“Screening is a prevention tool since it will allow the person to adapt their behavior and above all to be treated”, continues Gilles Pialoux, “and we are almost 100% effective there”, he claims. “We have the tools, but they don’t go far enough towards the goal,” he regrets however, as this Thursday was marked by World AIDS Day.
