Interpreting HIV/AIDS data properly
By Peter Richards WASHINGTON, July 22, CMC – The Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) Programme, Paul De Lay, Sunday said a challenge for the international organisation is to come up with the right mechanism that would allow the media to properly interpret data on the HIV/AIDS global epidemic.
“We don’t want people to think that the AIDS epidemic is over because we have eight million people in treatment,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), after participating in a panel discussion on “HIV/AIDS and the News Agenda-Implications for Ending the Epidemic”.
The panel discussion formed part of a number of activities here ahead of the formal opening later on Sunday of the six-day 19th International AIDS Conference.
“We need to work with the media to ensure that we are putting the right spin on the data,” De Lay told CMC, noting that while it is important to note that while eight million people were receiving medical treatment for the virus “underneath that figure is a lot of people who are not getting treatment.
“How do we come up with the right opinion and that’s the challenge,” he said, adding “I think we have to be cautious, work with the media to ensure that the message is as accurate as possible”.
In a report titled “Together we will end AIDS” released ahead of the conference, UNAIDS noted that AIDS-related deaths in the Caribbean have declined by almost 50 per cent in 10 years.
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