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Only 30% Americans living with HIV have virus in check- Government report

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Just 30% of Americans living with HIV have the virus in check, putting others at risk of infection, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday.

The report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 840,000 of the 1.2 million people infected with HIV in 2011 were not consistently taking anti-HIV drugs that keep the virus suppressed at very low levels. Of that number, 66% had been diagnosed with HIV but were not getting regular care; 20% did not know they were infected, and 10% were prescribed anti-HIV medicine known as antiretroviral treatment but were still not able to get the virus under control, and 4% of patients were under physician care but were not prescribed antiretroviral medicines.

Studies have shown that viral suppression can extend the lives of people infected with the virus and can cut the risk of transmitting the infection to others by as much as 96%. According to the CDC, the%age of Americans with HIV who achieved viral suppression remained roughly stable, with 30% achieving that goal in 2011, the latest year for which data are available, compared with 26% in 2009.

Young people were least likely to have the virus in check, the report found. Only 13% of people aged 18-24 achieved viral suppression in 2011 compared to 23% of those aged 25-34, 27% of those aged 35-44, 34% of those aged 45-54, 36% of those aged 55-64, and 37% of those aged 65 and older. 

The researchers attribute the disparity in large part to fewer than half (49%) of 18-to-24-year olds with HIV having been diagnosed. "There is untapped potential to drive down the epidemic through improved testing and treatment, but we're missing too many opportunities," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, said in a statement.

According to the CDC, as many as 50,000 Americans become infected with HIV each year. The CDC recommends treatment with antiretroviral drugs for everyone infected with HIV, regardless of how many copies of the virus are circulating in a person's blood, a term known as viral load.
 

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