HIV, Italian research faces threat of US cuts

New studies propose treatments for HIV increasingly effective, tolerable and adaptable to needs of people living with the infection. And the Italian researchers are also engaged on the front line in cooperation with low-middle income countries. But on these projects loom the cuts of US President Donald Trump to budgets of federal agencies and research programs on AIDS. Cuts that also threaten Italian NGOs, in addition to all international research. This is the alarm that comes from 17th edition of Icar - Italian Conference on Aids and Antiviral Research, which from 21st to 23rd May will involve, in Padua, over 1,200 clinicians, researchers, nurses and volunteers. "The results of new studies confirm that living with HIV no longer means living with heavy therapies or disabling - underlines Stefano Rusconi, co-president of Icar - There are effective and customized solutions for every need: from the daily tablet to the bimonthly injections. And Italy is a protagonist of international research, even in Low-income countries". In Tanzania, for example, the project five-year program coordinated by Doctors with Africa Cuamm, has demonstrated the effectiveness of a community-based model for improve access to HIV testing and treatment, with over 330 thousand tests performed and more than 90% of patients with viremia suppressed. But the results of this and other projects could suffer a hard blow from the decisions of the Trump administration relating to cuts in government agency staff health and cuts to research. "Scientists from the agencies US federals - Rusconi reports - see their budget. Freezing funding for HIV research programs like Pepfar or USAID will have consequences especially in the most poor". The cuts to USAID, confirms Don Dante Carraro, director of Doctors with Africa Cuamm, "have already had heavy and immediate repercussions. In Uganda we had to suspend two projects for the care of mothers and children and for the sick tuberculosis. There was a lack of funds for medical supplies, medicines and staff salaries".