More HIV?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: Public health experts are sounding warnings about more HIV in the wake of Covid-19, Elizabeth Tracey reports

As the world’s attention is taken up by Covid-19, will we see resurgences of TB and HIV? That’s the concern of global public health experts, who warn that just as is the case with Covid-19, no country will remain unaffected by increases in these two infectious diseases. Joseph Cofrancesco, an HIV expert at Johns Hopkins, comments.

Cofrancesco: The pessimist in me says clearly this is going to disrupt things and make for horrible problems. The Lancet Global Health published the article that looked at this and said, based upon this different modeling that the worst case scenario is that there will be 10% more deaths worldwide due to HIV in the next five years. Now that’s modeling but its pretty good modeling. The optimist in me says we will get a vaccine and we’ll get this under control.   :31

Cofrancesco notes that both HIV and TB rates were declining globally with worldwide public health cooperation, and hopes that will resume. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.