World AIDS Day, more than 6,000 telephone calls to the ISS’s AIDS and STIs toll-free number in 2021

On 1 December, the toll-free number 800 861061 will be operating from 10 AM to 6 PM

30 november 2021 -

They are mainly men (83.6%), residing in Northern and Central Italy, with an average of 35 years of age. This is the picture of the average user who called the ISS’s AIDS and STIs toll-free number in 2021, for a total of 6,219 telephone calls. 
The questions posed to the experts mainly concerned doubts on heterosexual intercourse with occasional partners, the transmission of HIV and STIs (32.4%), and the testing procedure for these infections (28.0%). One third of the questions asked by women concerned the tests (how much time should elapse after intercourse, how and where to take them) and more than one third of the questions asked by men were on the ways HIV can be transmitted. Still now, approximately 10% of the phone calls reveal an evident misinformation on the risks underlying HIV transmission.
From all the telephone calls received throughout 2021, it emerges that 36.2% of those calling the AIDS and STIs toll-free number had never taken an HIV test. 
The data relative to 2021 are in line with those drawn from the more than 820,000 calls received by the AIDS and STIs toll-free number since June 1987, suggesting that the Service is still necessary to meet the callers’ need of information insofar as it provides strong evidence-based personalized answers. Moreover, the availability of a data bank with the data from 650 Diagnostic clinical Centres and 28 Checkpoints present throughout the national territory, enables the experts of the AIDS and STIs toll-free number to provide the caller with all the useful information on where and how to take an HIV test.

The HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Service, which is anonymous and toll-free and has been operating since 1987, falls within the scope of the Psychosocial and Behavioural Research, Communications, and Training Operating Unit of the Infectious Disease Department of the ISS. The experience acquired in all these years of activity and the operational procedures developed in order to provide scientific answers to the complex questions asked by the users have created a situation in which, faced with the SARS-CoV-2 emergency, the team of experts of the AIDS and STI toll-free number also started answering the users’ requests for information relatively to the COVID-19 medical emergency, providing information on national and regional services and referring them to the Ministry of Health’s public utility number ‘1500’, to the toll-free numbers activated by the Regional Authorities and Autonomous Provinces, and to the official Websites of the Regional Councillorships of Health and of several Institutions (Civil Protection Service, the Italian Red Cross, etc.), which are responsible for providing people with information at regional level. 
Moreover, through the AIDS and STI toll-free number, a full-fledged primary care prevention intervention was delivered by systematically instructing users on the need to maintain all the measures aimed at avoiding the risk of being infected with SARS-CoV-2, especially in social and sexual relations with casual partners.
Within this context, from March to September 2021, a telephone survey was performed regarding the Acceptability of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine by the people calling the AIDS and STI toll-free number, for the purpose of surveying the social and personal characteristics of the callers, as well as their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours with respect to the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The telephone survey was delivered to 528 users, mostly young adult males, employed professionals with a high level of education and 44.3% of whom had already satisfactorily received the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.  

The legal counselling section 
Two days a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, from 2 to 6 PM, a legal expert can be consulted by the users of the HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Service with respect to issues of discrimination or labour or social security problems.
Over the last two decades, the progressive chronicization of the HIV infection – the result of important medical achievements – has determined a significant lengthening of the median survival rate of HIV patients, enabling the persons who have to live with this infection to lead a much more normal life than in the past.
However, notice should be taken of a fact that emerges from observing the present-day situation: the undoubted progress made by medicine in these last twenty years have not been equalled by a parallel development in the societal perception of the disease and with the long-awaited overcoming of the correlated stigma. 
Therefore, the current situation paints a picture with an increasingly numerous population of HIV+ affected persons anxiously tackling a family, affective, and professional life in which the weight of prejudice and of the irrational fear of the disease have often remained the same as twenty years ago and, in some cases, have actually worsened consequently to discontinuous and oftentimes ineffective information and prevention campaigns, to the reduction in health and social care services, and in living conditions in general. 
The present SARS Cov-2 epidemic has made the situation all the more uncomfortable for people living with a chronic HIV infection who have witnessed a relevant worsening in the level of health care, especially at the peak of the spread of COVID-19, when the infectious disease wards were literally overwhelmed by the emergency, consequently becoming, at least in some cases, totally inaccessible to whomever was not affected by the new infection.
The analysis of the calls received by the Legal Counselling Section of the HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Service paints the following picture: out of the 815 incoming requests from 2012 to 2021, 67.5% were made by males, 32.4% by females, and 0.1% by transexuals.
The most represented is the 40-49 age group (33.1%), followed by the over-50s (29%) and then by the 30-39 age group (22.6%), the 20-29 age group (10.1%) and the 10-19 age group representing only 0.4%. 
45.1% of the calls were made from the Northern Regions of Italy.
The breakdown by groups of users calling the Service for problems of discrimination, stigma and/or the breach of privacy of their medical data, showed a net prevalence of people with HIV, who represented 67.5%.
Numerically relevant are also the requests made with respect to social security and healthcare rights and to the problem of access to care while the number of requests relative to the criminal liability arising from the transmission of the virus resulted to be lower, albeit still significant.

The United against AIDS Website
With a view to implementing the institutional communication and information activities on infectious diseases, since 2013 the HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Service was integrated with the interactive “United against AIDS” Website [LINK: www.uniticontrolaids.it ] which, in addition to providing updated information on HIV/AIDS/STI prevention, diagnosis, and treatment options, continuously disseminates scientific innovations and STI prevention events and enables the effective dissemination of the culture of test-taking, combating the stigma, and building self-awareness in one’s behaviours, also through the connected social media channels (Twitter, YouTube). 
Furthermore, thanks to the options offered by the HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Service and the “United against AIDS” Website, it has been possible to perform specific surveys on the awareness and behaviours required in the prevention of infectious diseases. During the last few years, surveys were conducted on the behaviour of specific subgroups of people such as youths, the customers of sex workers, women and, more recently, the acceptability of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, which is still ongoing.
The “United against AIDS” Website is currently performing a targeted survey aimed at assessing the impact of the new therapies available on the quality of life of people with an HIV infection, their professional achievements, social relations, and societal stigma. It is possible to participate in the survey by answering the questions on the anonymous questionnaire published on the “United against AIDS” Website, at the link: https://www.uniticontrolaids.it/attualita/iniziative.argomento.aspx?arg=TLA-65A6F000F20D45A0#.X5LnRtUza73.  

This year, on WAD 2021, the “United against AIDS” Website published two videos in Italian and in Sign Language, produced in partnership of the Ente Nazionale Sordi (National Association of the Deaf):
•    https://www.uniticontrolaids.it/attualita/iniziative.argomento.aspx?arg=TLA-B6A37EE253F74E35#.YZ-WrtDMK70
•    https://www.uniticontrolaids.it/attualita/iniziative.argomento.aspx?arg=TLA-5220DB71C90D4A6C#.YZ-W69DMK70

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On the 1st of December, to celebrate World AIDS Day, the 800 861061 toll-free telephone number for AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità - ISS (Italian National Institute of Health) will extend its usual working hours (Monday through Friday, from 1 PM to 6 PM). On that day, experts will be answering from 10 AM to 6 PM and the legal consultant will be available in the afternoon shift. 
On this day, the email addresses tvalis@iss.it, exclusively dedicated to deaf people, and www.uniticontrolaids.it will remain operational. 

The AIDS and STI toll-free number coordinates ReTe AIDS, the Network of HIV/AIDS/STI Telephone Counselling Services present in different Italian Regions.
ReTe AIDS shares the same scientific contents and same telephone answering method which is structured on a few basic counselling competences and the same data collection form.  
(in alphabetical order)

 
1.    ANLAIDS Sez. Laziale - Roma
2.    ANLAIDS Sez. Lombarda G.V.M.A.S. - Milano
3.    ASA-Associazione Solidarietà AIDS Onlus - Milano
4.    Associazione / Verein Pro Positiv Südtiroler AIDS HILFE - Bolzano 
5.    Associazione ARCOBALENO AIDS - Torino 
6.    Associazione Spazio Bianco AIDS - Perugia
7.    Centro Giusy InformAIDS - Salerno
8.    Filo diretto-TELEFONO VERDE AIDS Emilia Romagna – Bologna
9.    Linea Telefonica HIV/MTS - Milano
10.    Linea Verde AIDS - ASL Napoli 1 Centro - Napoli
11.    Segreteria AIDS-Caritas Ambrosiana - Milano
12.    Telefono Verde AIDS e IST / UO RCF dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Roma
13.    Unità HIV – Fondazione Villa Maraini Onlus - Roma
 
Translation of the text above:
WORLD AIDS DAY
On World AIDS Day, the toll-free number for AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
800861061
Will extend its working hours from 10 AM to 6 PM
A legal expert will be available in the afternoon hours
Protect sexual relations against infections
Take a test if you have had risky-taking behaviours