«I and HIV, have been HIV positive for 40 years. Now I’m fine, but I didn’t say it at work and I didn’t even go to the gym »- breaking latest news

Sofia, we’ll call her that, today he is 56 years old, a job, a regular life. At 15, in 1980, his life was, by his own admission, much more troubled. It was in those years that he contracted the HIV virus with which he has lived for forty years. “I can’t say exactly when I got infected – she says -, perhaps as early as 1980 when no one was talking about AIDS and I I swapped syringes with my friends toxic in the southern outskirts of Milan, but it is also possible that the infection occurred in 1988, when I was having relations with a drug addict ». The diagnosis came much later, in 1996, when she was hospitalized for serious bronchopneumonia. In those days it was done to her for the first time the HIV test which revealed its positivity. “I was transferred to the infectious ward of the Sacco for ten days, but when I left I didn’t give a damn about the diagnosis. I decided to cure myself only two years later. At a certain point I was more over there than here and I decided to continue living “.

Sofia’s is one of the first stories of contagion in Lombardy, a story that she herself can tell today, just as she can tell dozens of friends he lost to AIDS. The first scientific article to account for an inexplicable increase in two rare pathologies among young American homosexuals dates back to June 1981. Only three years later the name was given to new disease, AIDS, caused by a virus, HIV, capable of attacking the immune system of a healthy person. Forty years later, research has made great strides, has discovered how to diagnose, has found the most effective treatments, but a stigma remains about a virus that can affect anyone through unprotected sexual intercourse.

«My closest friends know about the disease – continues Sofia -, but I didn’t say it at work and I didn’t even go to the gym. I had safe intercourse with a man for a few months, but then the relationship ended. He was afraid and I myself didn’t want to involve him in a complicated story ». In 1996, when she began treatment, Sofia was on ten drugs a day. Now just one pill and check every six months. «I have a regular life, I play sports, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I am volunteer at the headquarters of Anlaids Lombardia“. Where he listens to incredible stories: “Fathers of families who, after a night with a trans, refuse the test because their wife could find out everything.”

The 1st of December will be celebrated world day for the fight against AIDS and of information, prevention and protection speaks Andrea Gori, Head of Infectious Diseases at the Polyclinic and Full Professor at the State University: «I chose infectious diseases when I began to see many young people dying of AIDS. I have experienced all the great achievements of disease research and I would also like to see the vaccine. Unfortunately, two years of pandemic risk making us lose what we have built in the culture of prevention ». The latest reliable data, those of 2019, tell of one Lombardy among the most affected regions. Difficulty accessing hospitals cut diagnoses in half last year. “We have tried to maintain the supply of drugs – concludes Gori – but we must start again with the Prep which is not just a pill for HIV-negative people, but is a prevention and information program”.

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