New research released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that more than 90 percent of new HIV infections in the United States could be averted by diagnosing people living with HIV and ensuring they are immediately given access to medical care.
HIVPlus Magazine reported that Jonathan Mermin, the director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention said, “We could prevent the vast majority of new infections tomorrow by improving the health of people living with HIV today.”
According to Mermin , testing is key: their analysis shows that 30 percent of new HIV infections were transmitted by people who did not know that they were infected with the virus.
“Positive or negative, an HIV test opens the door to prevention. For someone who is positive, it can be the gateway to care and the signal to take steps to protect partners from infection. For someone who tests negative, it can be a direct link to important prevention services to help them stay HIV-free,” said Eugene McCray, MD, director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. “At CDC, we’re working hard to make testing as simple and accessible as possible.”
The CDC says that “today’s analysis suggests that simply being in care can help people living with HIV avoid transmission of their virus. According to the model, people who were engaged in ongoing HIV care, but not prescribed antiretroviral treatment, were half as likely (51.8 percent) as those who were diagnosed but not in care to transmit their virus. Being prescribed HIV treatment further lowered the risk that a person would pass the virus to others.”
