‘Let’s take the path of rights: My health, my right’, this year’s World AIDS Day slogan
Balearic Islands reports 89 new infections, the best figure since records have been kept (2003-2023) and 13.6% less than in 2022 (103)
World AIDS Day, which has been celebrated for 35 years on 1 December, this year 2024 has the slogan ‘Let’s take the path of rights: My health, my right’, to send the message that AIDS can be ended if the rights of all people are protected. With human rights at the centre and autonomous communities at the forefront, AIDS as a public health threat can be ended by 2030.
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The drop in HIV infections in 2023 brings the Balearic rate to its lowest-ever incidence, 7.36 infections per 100,000 inhabitants, and equals the national average
For its part, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling on leaders and citizens around the world to defend the right to health by correcting the inequalities that hinder progress towards the end of AIDS.
In the Balearic Islands, different strategies related to HIV infections (human immunodeficiency virus, better known as the AIDS virus) are addressed jointly and transversally with other institutions, associations and society in general. Programmes are in place to prevent new infections and, in parallel, to achieve early diagnosis and treatment that also prevent further infections.
The promotion of the use of condoms, with special emphasis on the young population, prophylaxis before exposure to HIV, sex education and the fight against the stigma that still accompanies infected people, are other actions that are carried out.
Lowest rate in history
The results are already being felt. According to unconsolidated data from the Servei d’Epidemiologia, which reports to the Directorate General of Public Health, 89 HIV infections were diagnosed on the islands in 2023, 13.6% less than the 103 detected in 2022. Furthermore, these new infections put the incidence rate at 7.36 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in the period 2003-2023 since the recording of accumulated cases, notified or detected in each year, has been carried out.
Of the 89 new infections diagnosed last year, the number of cases fell among women, from 33 diagnoses in 2022 to 10 in 2023, and among men, from 113 to 79. In general, fewer cases have been diagnosed, both of Spanish and foreign origin and among both men and women. There has also been a decrease in both recent and late diagnoses.
By islands, 76 new cases have been detected in Mallorca, 12 in the Pitiusas and 1 in Menorca. About the categories of transmission, 59 infections occurred among men who had sex with men, 26 among heterosexuals, 1 in a child of a mother at risk and in the remaining 3 how they were infected was unknown.
From these data, it can be concluded that a downward trend in overall HIV incidence on the islands is consolidating. The maximum annual rate was in 2008, when 209 infections were diagnosed and it stood at 19 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants. Since that year, and with slight fluctuations from time to time, the trend has been towards a decrease in new diagnoses.
Balearic Islands, below the national average
Although the annual rate in the Balearic Islands was usually above the national average, the drop in cases in 2023 brings them on par. As of 30 June 2024, the Ministry of Health received notification of 3,196 new HIV diagnoses in 2023, representing a rate of 6.65 cases per 100,000 population unadjusted for delayed reporting. After correction for this delay, it is estimated that when the notification of all diagnoses made that year has been completed, the national rate for 2023 will be 7.38 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, higher than the 7.36 new infections in the Balearic Islands.
In the 2003-2023 series, 3,270 HIV infections have been diagnosed on the islands: 2,703 in Mallorca (82.7%), 430 in the Pitiusas (13.1%) and 137 in Menorca (4.2%). By gender, 2,675 were men and 595 were women. By age group, the highest percentage (37.8%, 1,237 cases) is between 30 and 39 years of age, followed by those between 40 and 49 (24.8%, 811) and between 20 and 29 (22.8%, 744) in third place.
Forty-six per cent of the infections (1,504) occurred among men who have sex with men, 39.9% (1,305) among heterosexuals and 9.6% (314) among injecting drug users, a category of transmission in marked decline. By nationality, the country of origin of 1,962 of the HIV cases diagnosed in the Balearic Islands between 2003-2023 was Spain, while the remaining 1,307 corresponded to people born outside this country. The nationality of the remaining 1,307 cases is unknown.
Late diagnosis, a challenge
Late diagnosis remains a challenge, with 56.5 per cent of HIV cases among women and 48.9 per cent among men. This is a problem because, at the time of late diagnosis, the immune status of those affected is already severely impaired.
Early diagnosis not only allows rapid access to treatment, which substantially improves the quality of life of those infected but also reduces HIV-related illnesses and HIV-related mortality, as well as enabling those affected to know they are infected and to take precautionary measures to avoid transmitting the virus to others.