WHO and UNAIDS Issue New Guidance on HIV Testing

The National AIDS Trust welcomes the new guidance on HIV testing and counselling issued today (30 May) by WHO and UNAIDS, and calls for this guidance to be put into practice in the UK to help increase early diagnosis of HIV through ethical, accessible and appropriate testing. 

Deborah Jack, Chief Executive of the National AIDS Trust, comments:

"A third of people living with HIV in the UK are currently undiagnosed, and there is still much to do in the UK in order to increase the numbers of people who are diagnosed early. Initiatives to increase levels of HIV testing in sexual health clinics and during antenatal care in the UK have been very successful; now we need to ensure that HIV tests are more widely offered in circumstances where there is a high risk of infection.

We fully support the guidance that all patients diagnosed with TB or who attend sexual health clinics are offered an HIV test, which currently does not always happen.  Healthcare workers, particularly in primary care, also need training so that they can identify symptoms of HIV as early as possible, as currently the early symptoms of the virus are often missed or misdiagnosed".

For further information on the new guidance issued by the WHO and UNAIDS, visit http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/vct/en/index.html.