“Of the 600 HIV-infected people on antiretroviral therapy who responded to the survey promoted by the Icona Foundation, 56.8% said they were interested in long-acting therapy, because it is not taken daily. Most affected are patients forced to take more drugs every day, or young people who are the least inclined to duty: remembering to take the tablets every day and maybe taking them in the presence of strangers bothers them. These young patients, recently diagnosed with HIV infection, are not affected by other diseases, have a high level of education and are therefore well informed and attentive to the progress of therapies. However, they fear the stigma, they are afraid of the judgment of others“He states it Antonella D’Arminio Monforte, full professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Milan, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Paolo Hospital in Milan and president of the Icona Foundation.
The expert comments on the data that emerged from the survey by Foundation Icon whose results, collected anonymously through a questionnaire aimed at understanding the experience on therapy and management of the disease of people with HIV throughout the country, were presented to theItalian Conference on Aids and Antiviral Research (Icar2021), underway in Riccione. “Very different – specifies D’Arminio Monforte – the situation of the patient who has to take a single tablet, whether it contains 2 or 3 preparations, compared to taking more tablets. Surely he has the feeling that the therapy ‘weighs’ less on the his quality of life. Then there are those patients who experience their HIV positivity with frustration and limitation and declare that they encounter organizational difficulties in taking daily therapy.: they are often people who do not need to take additional drugs because they do not suffer from other pathologies, however they prefer to go to the hospital 1 or 2 times a month “.
According to the infectious disease specialist, it is important to build personalized therapeutic pathways “to meet the individual needs of patients”. “Thanks to new classes of drugs – underlines D’Arminio Monforte – and to new methods of administration, the patient can choose which therapy to take, with the same efficacy and low toxicity. This ensures long-term therapy and patient acceptance of antiretroviral therapy. Following the therapy continuously allows its greater effectiveness. Unfortunately, it must be said, there is no eradicating cure, only therapies that block the activity of the virus as long as they are taken “.
The survey promoted by the Icona Foundation, in addition to highlighting the needs of people with HIV infection on treatments and on the personalization of care, confirms the value of the Icona center network, established over 20 years ago to monitor clinical data and the management of antiretroviral therapies in HIV infected people starting a therapeutic path. And he specifies, as has already emerged from other analyzes of the recent past such as Positive Perspective 2 (Okoli, C. et al., 2020), that it will be increasingly necessary to understand the needs of people with HIV infection in order to design targeted therapeutic paths and propose assistance modalities suited to individual needs.
“Even with all the methodological limitations, having streamlined tools such as investigations carried out directly on people with HIV infection allows us to photograph a reality and reflect, in order to be able to design more targeted cohort analyzes”, remarks D’Arminio Monforte.
“The Icona network and the collaboration with patient organizations – he highlights – have allowed us to collect a homogeneous sample on the territory and offer us information of great practical use, which comes directly from the perception of people with HIV. a national Observatory like that of Icona that monitors over 20 thousand patients over time is something truly unique, especially because Icona has been present since 1997. It contains the whole history of HIV in Italy “.
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