Health officials have said that a change in strategy in fighting HIV could be the key to beating the spread of the life-threatening illness.
They have suggested that testing most of the world’s populations for HIV, or ‘blanket testing’, could see the virus dying out within 40 years.
The plan could see people offered twice-yearly tests for the sexually transmitted infection, with those testing positive immediately put on anti-viral treatment for the rest of their lives. The suggestion comes after clinical trials showed that blanket prescription of ARVs, or antiretroviral drugs, could stop transmission of HIV and halve the number of cases of AIDS-related tuberculosis within 10 years.
Treating patients with ARVs within a year of their diagnosis can not only prevent the HIV from becoming full-blown AIDS, but can reduce the transmission of the virus tenfold, which eventually could force the virus to die out.
Scientists are planning to launch large-scale trials of the new strategy in Africa and the US, results of which will decide whether the plan will be adopted as public health policy. It is thought that in South Africa alone, the cost to implement the program would be between $3bn and $4bn per annum.
Speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis said that he believed that when all costs were factored in, the cost of the antiretroviral drugs would be considerably less than the cost of treating HIV-positive patients for the diseases they eventually develop, only for the patients to eventually die.
He said, “The only thing that’s more expensive is not doing this”, pointing out that young adults in the prime of their life were dying at the moment when they could be contributing to society.