General Article HIV in the UK: 2016 report

Topic Selected: AIDS & HIV
This article is 6 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.

An extract from the report by Public Health England.

It is 20 years since the introduction of life-saving, free and effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the UK. Treatment has transformed HIV from a fatal infection into a chronic, manageable condition and people living with HIV in the UK can now expect to live into old age if diagnosed promptly. For many people, treatment means one daily tablet with no or few side effects. More recently, it has been demonstrated that the advantages of ART extend beyond personal clinical benefit. It is now widely understood that effective HIV treatment results in an ‘undetectable’ viral load which is protective from passing on the virus to others [1, 2].

While testing and treatment for HIV in the UK is free and available to all, over 13,000 people living with HIV remain undiagnosed and rates of late diagnosis remain high. Late HIV diagnosis is associated with poorer health outcomes, including premature death [3, 4]. Furthermore, since the vast ma...

Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?

Sign up now for an immediate no obligation FREE TRIAL and view the entire collection