The National AIDS Trust have called for the urgent prioritisation of HIV testing in its new ‘HIV testing action plan’. The plan provides strategic guidance to health bodies on tackling the serious issue of late HIV diagnosis in the UK. The call has been echoed by “Halve It”, a broad coalition of leading experts and advocates in HIV and AIDS.
A recent Health Protection Agency report estimated that the total number of people living with HIV in the UK is set to reach 100,000 this year. It is also estimated that in 2010, half of people diagnosed with HIV were diagnosed late, and 24% of all those currently living with HIV were unaware of their condition.
Pamela Nash, MP for Airdrie and Shotts and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS, welcomed the plan, saying, “It has been proven that testing early for HIV saves lives and protects public health. Putting this plan into action will help us to meet our aims of the Halve it campaign: to halve the number of people living with late and undiagnosed HIV in the UK by 2015.”
“HIV testing is at the heart of any effective strategy for tackling HIV in the UK” says Yusef Azad, Director of Policy and Campaigns at the NAT, “Our action plan provides a framework for health bodies, both national and local to think about HIV testing and their responsibilities”.
The action plan argues: “HIV testing is key to prevention. The UK must move from reliance on its traditional ‘opt-in’ model of voluntary HIV testing to an ‘opt-out’ approach across the range of healthcare settings including all newly registering patients in general practice, and all general hospital admissions, in every high HIV prevalence area across the country”.
With budgets stretched by recession, reducing undiagnosed HIV would mean fewer new HIV infections, fewer early deaths, reduced hospital admissions and AIDS-related illness, and more money saved by the NHS. It is estimated that the prevention of each new HIV infection would save the public purse between £280,000 and £360,000 in direct lifetime health costs.
