About 5,000 people discovered their HIV seropositivity in 2021, a stable number compared to 2020, notes Public Health France on the occasion of World AIDS Day.
By Florence Rosier
It is a paradox of the fight against HIV. Never has the arsenal of prevention means have been so rich and diverse. However, the number of new diagnoses of infection by the human immunodeficiency virus does not decrease in France, notes Public Health France (SPF), in a document published Tuesday, November 29, on the occasion of World AIDS Day , Thursday 1
From 2012 to 2019, HIV screening activity has regularly increased, from 5.3 million tests to 6.1 million per year. Then she fell between 2019 and 2020 (- 13 %), in connection with the COVID-19 epidemic. This decrease “was not completely caught in 2021 (+ 8 %), hence a deficit in the use of screening”, notes SPF.
As for the number of new diagnoses, it has decreased sharply between 2019 and 2020 (- 22 %). A fall “in connection with the decrease in screening activity, but undoubtedly also with a drop in HIV exposures linked to social distancing measures, and with the drop in migratory flows, especially from sub -Saharan Africa”, analysis SPF.
In 2021, approximately 5,000 people discovered their HIV HIV positive, a stable number compared to 2020. A stability observed whatever the mode of contamination or the place of birth: heterosexuals born abroad or in France, Men with sexual relations with men born abroad or in France, users of injection drugs, trans.
In 2021 too, 24 % of the diagnoses were carried out at an early stage of the infection, “a proportion that tends to decrease”, notes Florence Lot, of the direction of infectious diseases to SPF; 47 % was at an intermediate stage, a proportion that increases; And 29 % at an advanced stage (AIDS or CD4 lymphocytes less than 200 by mm 3 ), “a fairly stable proportion in recent years”. Data for the year 2022 is not yet known.
“An improvement in screening is necessary to reduce late diagnoses and contamination,” observes SPF. “Early screening makes it possible to benefit from antiretroviral therapy, to lower the viral load and, thus, to no longer transmit HIV”, underlines Florence Lot.
Now a new device allows, since the 1 er January, to be tested for HIV for free, without advance of costs and without prescription, in all the laboratories of France. “This screenless screening is a very good measure, especially for the youngest and older, who are underdempted,” said Professor Gilles Pialoux, head of infectious and tropical disease at Tenon hospital, in Paris.
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