Almost half HIV infections worldwide undetected – WHO

The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that nearly half of all people with HIV around the globe do not know they are infected, and called for broader access to at-home testing kits.

The UN health agency said that 40 percent of people with the virus that causes AIDS, or more than 14 million people worldwide, are unaware of their status, according to 2015 estimates.

That marks a huge improvement over just a decade earlier, when only 12 percent of people with HIV were estimated to know they had the virus.

But the continued lack of diagnosis, remains a major obstacle to implementing WHO’s recommendation for everyone with HIV to be offered anti-retroviral therapy, or ART.

Today, more than 80 percent of everyone diagnosed with HIV is receiving ART.



But WHO chief Margaret Chan warned that since so many people do not know their status, “millions of people with HIV are still missing out on life-saving treatment, which can also prevent HIV transmission to others.”

“HIV self-testing should open the door for many more people to know their HIV status and find out how to get treatment and access prevention services,” she said.

HIV self-testing means that people can, in the privacy of their own homes, use oral fluid or blood from a finger prick to determine their status in a matter of minutes.



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