Rosaria Iardino and Fernando Aiuti, the kiss of 2 December 1991
World AIDS Day, since 1991 the year that immortalized Rosaria Iardino as “the girl with the kiss” to the impact of the pandemic and the stigmatization that does not leave society
Forty years after the discovery of the first cases of HIV, “a first December different from the others, which takes stock of the road traveled up to now and that which still remains to be done”. It is the wish for today of Rosaria Iardino, journalist and activist against HIV and AIDS, positive for the virus since the age of 17 and known by all as “the kiss girl”, for the shot that immortalized her on December 2, 1991 mouth to mouth with the immunologist Fernando Aiuti (passed away in 2019) at a congress on AIDS. A “kiss of protest” that came the day after the publication of an article in the Mattino di Napoli which claimed that HIV could also be contracted with a kiss. Today Rosaria lives in Milan, with his wife Chiara and their two daughters. On the occasion of the World AIDS Day, Affaritaliani.it interviewed her, also shedding light onimpact of Covid, including missed or late diagnoses. In 2020, according to the ISS, the reduction in diagnosed cases of AIDS from 605 in 2019 to 352 could be traced back to the difficulty in accessing tests due to Covid.
In 1991 the kiss with Aiuti hit the mark. From that shot to today, which path has been taken?
The road traveled is long. From a clinical point of view in 1991 there was still no cocktail of drugs that changed the life outlook of people with HIV. Today they have an expectation equal to the others if they adhere to drug treatment. So the presence of people in society has also changed. People work, they have children regularly, because with the treatment the infection is no longer transmitted. I believe that there are two last miles to go in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The first mile is a cure-all vaccine. But unfortunately it is still a long way off. The great nonsense is to believe that while for Covid the vaccine has been found “because the multinationals eat it up” for HIV it is not found because there is no interest. Not so, the HIV virus is much more complex and finding a vaccine is extremely difficult. To the therapies that foresee a tablet a day shortly, another method of administration will be added, an injection every two months, based on a slow-release drug, but more than this the pharmaceutical industries cannot. Furthermore, it is not negligible that in Italy there is no discrimination in accessing drugs. The infectious specialist gives you the most suitable therapy for you and everyone can access the drugs for free. This is not the case in the United States or even in Eastern Europe. The other mile is about the stigma which, admittedly, still exists.
At the ICAR congress in October, the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge reiterated, “the stigmatization is still too much”, urging not to neglect it in order to “put an end to AIDS by 2030”.
Yes, it is a stigma that arises from a piece of society that immediately identifies you when it comes to HIV in an attitude that it does not share, such as homosexuality, for example. So there are still people who do not reveal that they are positive in the workplace, to their friends, for fear of being discriminated against. This cannot be overcome with laws and provisions, but only if we first of all change our attitude with HIV. I would like a general coming out of all people with HIV living in Italy. Only together can we make it clear that we are simply people who have contracted a disease, that we should not be ashamed of it but spend our energies fighting the infection and not society.
You have been at the helm of The Bridge association for five years. What do you do?
I have announced this year that for me it will be the last 1st of December as an activist against AIDS, but I will still deal with the policies in this regard. The foundation is responsible for monitoring public and health policies to help institutions, make patient and clinician associations understand that there is a different way of being together. Through our analyzes we highlight to the institutions what the system’s distortions may be. We help to make people understand that information is essential to feel good. Our main mission is to safeguard the universalism of the National Health Service. We have, for example, pointed out to Minister Speranza the problem of private insurance which allows private diagnoses only to those who can afford them, creating considerable inequalities among the population.
How do young people today relate to HIV?
Young people know nothing. They have come back to believe that interrupted coitus is the healthiest attitude to have and that since there are drugs HIV if you catch it what does it do. This is because no one has ever made interventions in schools again. There is a responsibility. A step should be taken in this direction by the education minister Bianchi and by Speranza.
Turning to the pandemic, it impacted infectious disease wards by penalizing patients with HIV. To what extent?
Our references, the infectious disease specialists, were, it could not be otherwise, co-opted for Covid. They tried to do what they could. However, reversing positively, it became clear that the HIV patient no longer has to be hospital-centered but, just as public health is being redesigned, with districts, community homes and pharmacies, can be taken care of. The opportunity of the pandemic must be taken to redesign the care of people with HIV.
There has been talk of monoclonal antibodies as a further solution regarding the similarities between Covid and HIV.
There are many studies on this but there is still no clear evidence. All suggestions can lead there, but on this I am cautious. Scientific evidence must determine whether they can become treatments.
#Iardino #AIDS #day #years #Doctors #Covid