GAT reacts to DGS: “We need a national strategy to achieve less than 150 new HIV diagnoses per year by 2030, far from the current 800”

The Group of Activists in Treatment (GAT) and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) warn, in reaction to the latest Report on HIV Infection in Portugal 2024, that Portugal is in a serious epidemiological situation in Western and Central Europe. HIV and AIDS activists are demanding national strategic leadership for the HIV pandemic and close collaboration with communities.

It is with concern, given the continuing seriousness of the epidemiological situation for HIV in Portugal, that GAT reacts to the figures for new diagnoses of infections in 2023, released by the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) and INSA.

The downward trend since the year 2000, when infections due to the sharing of injecting material began to fall dramatically, is insufficient to meet the 2030 targets that Portugal has committed itself to achieving.

At risk is the fulfillment of the third goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to guarantee access to quality healthcare by 2030, through the fulfillment of the Global Health Strategy for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs 2022-2030 and the UNAIDS 95-95-95 objectives.

“We will only reach the 2030 targets with a 90% reduction on the 2024 baseline (around 1,500 new diagnoses), i.e. having less than 150 new diagnoses in 2030, far from the current 800. We need a national strategy to achieve this goal,” explains Luís Mendão, GAT's Director of Advocacy and Health Policy, in reaction to the 876 infections detected in Portugal during 2023.

The GAT activists, who are a group of people living with HIV, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis and other STIs from different communities, warn that Portugal is the country in Europe with the most people with HIV on treatment per 100,000 inhabitants, as well as being the only country in this European area where drugs to treat HIV are the second highest cost of hospital medication. These figures are indicative of the current prevalence and incidence of HIV in Portugal.

AHF, an international organization that advocates for treatments for people living with HIV, with extensive experience in HIV epidemiology in several countries, recalls that the challenge is also European.

“Europe faces a unique challenge as we see a stagnation in the response to HIV, particularly in Eastern Europe where newly diagnosed cases continue to rise. We must reinvigorate our public health strategies to prevent new HIV infections and ensure that our health systems are adequately funded to support accessible screening, effective prevention, treatment and stigma reduction efforts,” says Daniel Reijer, Head of the AHF Europe Office.

GAT and AHF argue that the solution lies in having strong leadership in the National Program for STIs and HIV, in addition to “the need for a political commitment to eliminating HIV as a serious public health problem by 2030, for effective diagnosis of the current epidemiological situation and a strategy that guides the drastic reduction of new infections, as has already happened in other countries in Europe,” says Luís Mendão.

The associations of people with the disease believe that one of the urgent measures that the Ministry of Health should take is to widen access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug that prevents HIV infection, as well as guaranteeing funding for PrEP consultations in the community, which is sustainable, and in primary health care.

The two organizations marked World HIV and AIDS Day with their communities, launching a campaign to increase awareness of PrEP among transgender people, women and sex workers, many of whom are migrants. The moment was also an opportunity to launch a fundraising campaign to make community PrEP consultation available to the community, at the GAT Intendente center, run by GAT and in partnership with AHF.