HIV
HIV continues to be one of the most important communicable diseases in the UK. It is an infection associated with serious morbidity, high costs of treatment and care, significant mortality and high number of potential years of life lost. Each year, many thousands of individuals are diagnosed with HIV for the first time. The infection is still frequently regarded as stigmatising and has a prolonged ‘silent’ period during which it often remains undiagnosed. Highly active antiretroviral therapies have resulted in substantial reductions in AIDS incidence and deaths in the UK.
Overall HIV PrevalenceHIV prevalence is defined as the proportion of people in a population who are infected with HIV. The HPA conducts a series of surveys (UAPMP) in different populations: pregnant women, injecting drug users and genitourinary medicine clinic attendees. These surveys test anonymised samples and measure the prevalence of both diagnosed and undiagnosed HIV infection. |
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Accessing HIV careAccessing HIV careThe HPA records data for all individuals with diagnosed HIV infection who attend for HIV-related care within the NHS in England. The Survey of Prevalent HIV Infections Diagnosed (SOPHID) is the name of the HPA's surveillance schemes which collects this data. |
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New HIV DiagnosesNew HIV Diagnoses The main sources of information on newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS infection come from voluntary case reporting of HIV/AIDS from laboratory reports of newly diagnosed HIV infections by microbiologists and HIV/AIDS diagnoses by clinicians. |
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HIV IncidenceHIV IncidenceHIV incidence is the number of new HIV infections in the population during a certain time period. People who were infected before that time period are not included in the total, even if they are still alive. |
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ARV HIV ResistanceARV HIV ResistanceThe systematic collation of anti-retroviral (ARV) HIV resistance data from HIV infected drug-naïve individuals is crucial to understanding the epidemiology of transmitted drug resistance, while data from those already receiving ARV drugs provides indirect evidence of the contribution drug resistance makes to virological failure. |
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CD4 T-cell dataCD4 T-cell data The National CD4 Surveillance scheme monitors trends in immunosuppression associated with HIV infection by collecting data on CD4 T-lymphocyte (CD4 cell) counts performed by laboratories in England and Wales. |
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