14,000 Germans unknowingly infected with HIV

Thousands of Germans live unaware of HIV

04/11/2014

Thousands of people in Germany are infected with HIV without knowing it. The number of new infections has remained constant in recent years. According to experts, a decline in this country would be feasible.

14,000 people unknowingly lived with HIV infection
According to estimates by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), about 14,000 people in Germany lived with HIV infection at the end of 2013 without knowing it. According to the Epidemiological Bulletin of the RKI, this was around 1,000 more than the year before. According to the news agency dpa, the number of tests and readiness to test had risen, but the total number of HIV-infected people had increased since the late 1990s. Thus, overall, the number of people infected with HIV but undiagnosed is increasing.

Number of new infections constant
According to the current model calculation of the RKI, "in Germany some 3,200 people were newly infected with HIV last year - of which about 2,700 men". Apart from small fluctuations, the number of new infections per year since 2006 is constant. In the years 2000 to 2005, she had increased significantly. At the end of 2013, approximately 80,000 people in Germany were living with HIV or AIDS. Among them were around "65,000 men, around 15,000 women and around 200 children under the age of 15". An estimated 550 people died in HIV cases last year.

Education and prevention still necessary
So far, the existing test offer, the sometimes earlier HIV diagnoses and the extensive access to medical care are not enough to sustainably reduce the number of new infections, emphasized the RKI experts. In order to prevent both new HIV infections and the spread of other sexually transmitted infections, education, prevention and the use of condoms remain necessary. A contribution to the Enlightenment is certainly a campaign that was recently launched for World AIDS Day. This should help to reduce prejudice and discrimination against HIV-positive people. The campaign of the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) and the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) is being implemented in cooperation with the German AIDS Aid (DAH) and the German AIDS Foundation (DAS).

It could „still give significantly less infections“
According to DAH, the constant number of new HIV infections in Germany is a success of prevention. Manuel Izdebski from the DAH board stressed: „But there could still be much less infection with us: A decline is feasible.“ „The risk of encountering and contracting a partner with high viral load in condomless sex has thus increased in recent years“, In view of the increasing number of people who do not know about their HIV infection. (Ad)

Picture: Aka