Early diagnosis, treatment may cut HIV rates by 95%: study

Published online by the British journal The Lancet ahead of World AIDS Day next Monday, the investigation takes an idealized look at what would happen if a country suffering a massive, South African-style AIDS epidemic introduced this two-pronged strategy.

New infections of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) would plummet to a rate of to just one person in 1,000 within 10 years of implementation, amounting to a fall of 95 percent, say the authors.

The results boost arguments that helping people to know their HIV status earlier encourages safe sex, they say.

And giving infected people the cocktail of HIV drugs — which reduces the level of virus in the body — likewise reduces the risk of passing on the pathogen to others, they argue.

“(...) Only universal voluntary HIV testing and immediate initiation of ART [antiretroviral therapy] could reduce transmission to the point at which elimination might be feasible by 2020 for a generalized epidemic,” the paper says.

South Africa has the world’s highest rate of HIV with some 5.5 million people infected out of a population of 47 million. The epidemic has become generalized chiefly through heterosexual intercourse.

The research was led by Reuben Granich of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), although the agency was careful to say the paper aimed at spurring debate and was not an official policy.

And it noted that a whole range of hurdles — from lack of funds to drug resistance and toxicity — needed to be cleared before the double strategy of universal HIV tests and drug access could be achieved.

Around 33 million people have HIV or AIDS.

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