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New HIV treatment can extend life by more than a decade
"With todayââ¬â¢s advanced treatments, authors of the study compared the death rates from the disease to be more on par with those of diabetes sufferers."
A recent study of more than 43,000 people living with HIV has discovered that the ever improving treatments available can increase life expectancy by 13 years.
The report by Bristol University found that while people with HIV have a shorter life expectancy than the rest of the population, it should be treated as a chronic disease, not a fatal one.
Treatment for HIV has been consistently improving since the mid-nineties when funding into research and drug development was increased. Professor Jonathan Sterne, of the Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration at the University of Bristol, said:
"There has been a revolution in drug treatment for HIV since 1996… Suddenly we were able to stop the virus replicating and the immune system recovered.
"What we didn't know was what the long-term effects would be… There were also worries that resistance would develop, as would side effects such as heart disease. Instead the drugs have got more effective, with few side effects."
With today’s advanced treatments, authors of the study compared the death rates from the disease to be more on par with those of diabetes sufferers.
More than 80,000 people currently live with HIV in the UK, but it’s been found that a third of people with the disease are not diagnosed.
According to a report published last week by the National AIDS Trust, sufferers are often mis-diagnosed with doctors blaming symptoms, which include sore throat and fever, on glandular fever or flu.
Quick diagnosis of HIV would cut the numbers of those affected dramatically as it is estimated that up to 50% of new infections are passed on in the early stages of the disease.
