Each year, 650,000 people die of AIDS worldwide. Screening, essential in the fight against the disease, has been slowed down by the Covid-19 epidemic. Consequence: some HIV-positive people, without knowing it, can continue to transmit HIV.
In 2018, Emmanuel Bodoignet is 22 years old and works at the National Assembly as a parliamentary assistant. A pride for this young man from a popular background. Until the day he learns that he is infected with HIV. However, two years before, he had asked for Prep, a pre-exposure treatment that prevents infection.
” I was told that I was not one of the most exposed people, because I did not have much sex, I had never had an STI [infection sexuellement transmissible, NDLR]he testifies today. And so, very naively, I thought that I was not affected by the HIV-AIDS epidemic, even though I was a young gay man in Paris. And the proof is that two years later, I was HIV positive. So it can happen to anyone. »
On January 5, 2018, “ a date you won’t forget » the young man learns that he does indeed have AIDS. ” I received an SMS from a companion who said to me: “I’m in the hospital, I think you should get tested”. There, they explain to me that I am HIV-positive and a few days later, I come back to the hospital and they tell me that I am in the AIDS stage because it has been several months, even several years, that HIV has been in me and I didn’t get tested early enough. »
Since then, Emmanuel Boidoignet has continued to testify to raise awareness of the importance of getting tested. Because early detection and antiretroviral treatment can lower the viral load in the body and no longer transmit the AIDS virus.
A testimony to listen to in full in its main