Older adults get HIV diagnosis later, die sooner

[Avnish Jolly]

Older adults get HIV diagnosis later, die sooner
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6750BK20100806

By Frederik Joelving

NEW YORK | Fri Aug 6, 2010

(Reuters Health) - People over 50 with HIV are more likely to be
diagnosed with late-stage disease than younger adults, according to a
British study.

They are also more than twice as likely to die within a year of their
HIV test as are younger people, even if they are diagnosed late.

"We have a group of people who don't get tested because they don't
think they are at risk," said Dr. Valerie Delpech, of the U.K. Health
Protection Agency Center for Infections in London, who worked on the
study.

She said the number of HIV-infected Britons has tripled over the past
decade, reaching more than 55,000 in 2007. While older adults account
for only about one in six of these cases, the number of new diagnoses
is growing faster among those aged 50 and older.

"The numbers are still small," said Delpech, whose findings appear in
the journal AIDS; she estimated fewer than one in 1,000 Britons were
infected with HIV. But "everyone can be at risk, and we need to think
about that," Delpech said.

From 2000 to 2007, the number of newly diagnosed people over 50 jumped
from 299 to 710. Compared with their younger peers, older people with
HIV were more likely to be gay, white men.

"It wasn't all gay men," Delpech stressed. "In fact, there were a
large proportion of heterosexual men and women."