How to Test and Treat Hiv And Aids

The "test and treat" method to treating HIV is relatively new, and it has mixed results. There are positives to the approach, but there are negatives as well. Broadly defined, the "test and treat" method is designed to diagnose HIV infection early and reduce the viral load so that the HIV-positive patients don't spread the virus to others. It is seen as a method capable to curb the epidemic as antiretroviral therapy, or ART, is frequently given far too late after the initial infection. This gives time for the infected person to pass the virus on to others.

Since up to a quarter of all HIV-infected individuals don't know it yet, they can be highly infectious to others-especially if they engage in risky activity. "Test and treat" aggressively tests people for HIV and then, if found to be HIV-positive, are then treated with antiretroviral drugs in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus to others. Early treatment can reduce the viral load to one ten-thousandth of what it would be without treatment. A person with this viral load would be one twenty-fifth as likely to infect another person with HIV. This can reduce the spread of the virus, but a strict lifelong adherence to the treatment regimen is necessary.

Some investigators argue that since 19% of all HIV-infected individuals in the US have an undetectable viral load, the "test and treat" method is not effective by itself to control the spread of HIV. Test-and-treat is undermined primarily by three things: Late diagnosis, a low level of referral and retention in HIV specialist care, and a lack of adherence to antiretroviral therapy programs. The investigators also concluded that over a third of HIV-treated people in the US would have a detectable viral load, and because of this would still be at risk for spreading HIV to other people.

The "test and treat" method has been lauded as a way to control the spread of the epidemic. HIV-positive patients who have an undetectable viral load while on antiretroviral therapy are at a much lower risk to spread the virus, as stated before. However, a fifth of all new infections remain undiagnosed. In the United States, there are approximately 1.1 million HIV-positive individuals, and about 56,000 people are diagnosed with HIV each year. If the "test and treat" method is effective on a significant enough percentage of the 56,000 new HIV-positive patients, it could go a long way toward reducing the number of new HIV-positive cases being discovered every year.

International Symposium on HIV & Emerging Infectious Diseases (ISHEID): the world leading AIDS experts will gather for the 2012 HIV AIDS ISHEID conference in Marseille, France, May 23-25, 2012. The general AIDS conference theme will be 'From Universal HIV Testing to HIV Cure'.

By Alain Lafeuillade