HUNDREDS OF thousands of people living in areas of England with high rates of HIV infection face pressure to be tested for the virus under new plans designed to curtail its spread.
National Health Service (NHS) staff will be told to “offer and recommend” tests to all those who use AE services and register as new patients with GP practices in high-prevalence areas in England. This move effectively forces patients to opt out of the testing.
In areas where more than two in 1,000 adults have been diagnosed with HIV, anyone who has a blood test for any reason should be offered a test for the virus, according to guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
The testing will cost nearly £16 million (€18.5 million) a year and affect 37 primary care trusts, 26 in London. Those elsewhere include Blackpool, Brighton and Hove, Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester and Milton Keynes.
The policy, say its supporters, should lessen the stigma sometimes affecting gay men and black Africans, who make up significant proportions of those with the condition. Instead, HIV testing will become a more routine part of NHS healthcare.
Ben Tunstall, of the Terrence Higgins Trust sexual health charity, said the guidance was a step forward. “We urge anyone having sex with different partners to make regular testing a priority. These guidelines need to be put into practice to combat onward transmission of HIV,” he said.
Keith Radcliffe, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, said: “The later people are diagnosed with HIV the more difficult and expensive it is to treat them, the poorer their outcome may be and the more likely they are to have transmitted the infection.”
The national institute is acting on recommendations from health professionals, including the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to take a tougher line on testing.
The move also endorses the policy of the British HIV Association of offering tests to patients attending genito-urinary and sexual health clinics, antenatal and abortion services, or drug dependency programmes and those treating people with tuberculosis, hepatitis or lymphoma.
The guidance was published alongside HPA figures suggesting 46 per cent of 6,750 estimated new HIV diagnoses in the UK last year were linked to sex between men, with half thought to be through heterosexual contact, and the rest attributed to causes such as infected needles. – (Guardian service)