Testing delays cause HIV complications

Although life-saving antiretroviral drugs are often available, many people infected with HIV are dying from Aids because of delayed diagnoses and treatment, an expert team of researchers have claimed.

Dr Neel Gandhi, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and colleagues from Yale University studied 4,368 patients with Aids across the United States who had sought out treatment from Veteran's Administration (VA) Medical Centres between 1998 and 2002.

They were shocked to learn that 40 per cent of patients with Aids had previously received treatment at the VA for other illnesses, but had not been diagnosed with HIV and treated earlier.

"This occurred even though they had an average of six physician visits over three-and-a-half year," explained Dr Gandhi. "Even more concerning was that those patients who already interacted with the healthcare system for several years suffered the end-stage complications of Aids at the same rate as those who were new to the VA healthcare system."

He noted that this could have been because patients remained asymptomatic until very late in the disease, before adding that a previous study had highlighted routine screening for HIV infection as a cost-effective addition to screening done for other diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

"Assuming that patients give their permission to be screened for HIV, the potential savings from diagnosing an infection earlier would be quite significant," he said.

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