Health experts say that if testing keeps getting better, England could be free of new HIV cases by 2030.The new £170 million program is for people who haven't been diagnosed yet.The goal is to find infections earlier and cut down on the number of people who get them by a lot.
The goal of the effort is to make testing more widely available across the country, especially in areas with a lot of risk where undetected cases are a major cause of new infections.
As part of the promise, more A&E departments will offer routine HIV testing.This will allow thousands of patients to get quick evaluations when they go to the hospital.Pilot programs have already proven that this method works by finding cases that had not been diagnosed before and would have gone undiscovered.
People who don't want to or can't go to clinics can also now get free home-testing kits through the NHS app.This is a simple and private way to get tested.
The best way to stop the spread is to talk to people who don't know they have it
Experts say that undetected HIV is still one of the main reasons why new infections don't go away.Early testing not only lets people start treatment sooner, but it also stops the virus from spreading.This is because modern HIV treatment lowers the viral load to levels that are undetectable and therefore untransmittable.
England gets closer to its goal of having no HIV cases by 2030
Health officials say that the new steps are in line with the UK's long-term HIV Action Plan, which aims to stop new transmissions within ten years.
We need to keep putting money into testing, treatment, education, and community help in order to reach this goal.
