Two Million Years of Life Saved Through HIV Care

Improvements in HIV care between 1989 and 2003 saved at least 2 million years of life among U.S HIV-positive men, women, and children, researchers from Harvard University reported at the 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston. Most of the extra years of life were gained through the widespread availability of highly active antroviral therapy beginning in 1996, lead researcher Rochelle Walensky says. Improvements in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmissions also was a major contributor to the additional years of life gained, according to Walensky. However, the number of years of life saved could have been doubled to 4 million had the estimated 280,000 HIV-positive Americans who were unaware that they carry the virus had received care during the same period, Walensky says.