The war in Ukraine, which completed two months last Sunday (24), could put the lives of thousands of people undergoing treatment for chronic diseases in the country at risk.
The alert was made independently by UNAIDS (United Nations program on HIV/AIDS), the WHO (World Health Organization) and scientists from different institutions. The texts were recently published in articles in The Lancet and The Lancet HIV and in a WHO report.
With the advance of Russian troops in cities still occupied by civilians and the conflict not resolved, experts say that access to medicines, health services and even the shortage of professionals such as doctors can harm these patients in the short, medium and long term. deadlines.
This is because, in the case of many chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and autoimmune diseases, the interruption of treatment, even if temporary, can have consequences in the perspective of improvement or cure in the future.
The first UNAIDS alert, back in March, drew attention to the fact that Ukraine is the European country with the highest number of people living with HIV. There are about 250,000 living with the virus — of these, 146,000 use antiretroviral drugs.
Despite the high number of people with HIV, Ukraine has a successful track record in reducing the rates of new infections per year, from around 21% since 2010.
This was partly due to a public policy to raise awareness of the problem of needle exchange and a campaign to use so-called opioid antagonists (OAT), drugs that help drug addicts reduce substance use. like heroin.
According to the text published in The Lancet HIV, still in 2018, with the conflict between Russian forces and separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, favorable policies to reduce STIs (sexually transmitted infections, previously called sexually transmitted diseases) or STDs) were mainly affected by the closure of services for the population.
“Services have been interrupted in the area [na ocasião]and this serves as a wake-up call to the health and well-being of people living with HIV should a Russian support regime be installed in Ukraine,” the article reads.
Also according to the article, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 meant that the arrival of therapies for chemical dependency no longer took place in the area, as the Russian authorities considered it illegal.
But it’s not just people living with HIV who are at risk. A WHO survey found that 1 in 3 of people with a chronic illness in Ukraine are not receiving adequate treatment for their health conditions.
The survey, which is still ongoing, has gathered information from about 1,000 households to date, of which 2 in 5 (39%) claimed to have people with chronic health problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer.
Of these, a third have not accessed health services recently. The main reasons given were the lack of security (39%) and the absence of health services in the region (27%).
According to Jarno Habicht, WHO representative in the region and president of the organization’s Ukrainian office, it is “urgent to continue support for Ukrainian health services”.
So far, the UN and WHO have reached an agreement not to stop the supply of medicines, first-aid kits and essential items in the country. However, as the war continues, the future is uncertain.
The entity has already sent more than 218 tons of medical supplements to Ukraine, of which 65% (or 142 tons) have arrived in the country. The treatment drugs sent are enough to serve about 7.5 million people.
In addition, the agency continues to send health professionals, tests for Covid and says that it has also helped in surgeries and medical care against trauma, but the “risk of infectious diseases, along with the increase in diseases associated with the lack of sanitation and the reduction in routine immunization campaigns, due to the war, worries”.
In addition to the direct impacts on health services, the Russian occupation of the territory can also affect the development of new therapies and technologies, such as drugs and APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients, raw materials for the production of medicines).
In Brazil, the price of medicines rose due to the difficulty in accessing some of the APIs produced on the European continent, which, with the conflict, ends up filtering exports in order to meet local demand.
Pharmaceutical giant Roche said the Russian invasion of Ukraine could end development of a breakthrough drug against multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition in which the nervous system attacks the structure that covers nerves — known as the myelin sheath — causing damage to the nerves. motor and nervous functions.
The Swiss company said in a note on Monday that 20% to 30% of candidates in a clinical trial to test fenebrutinib as a drug to treat patients in the early stages of the disease were from Russia and Ukraine. The drug is a kinase blocker, a type of molecule that affects the immune response.
The conflict in the region caused study arms in these countries to be interrupted, which jeopardizes clinical studies, the company said.
