Published 2 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4521
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4521

News

EC launches new strategy to tackle HIV as prevalence continues to rise

Rory Watson

1 Brussels

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The European Commission has adopted a new five year strategy to combat HIV and AIDS in the European Union and countries on its eastern border. Its key objectives are to reduce the number of new HIV infections, improve access to preventive strategies, and raise the quality of life of people infected with the virus.

The initiative comes as the number of cases continues to increase. In 2001 1.5 million people in the European Union and in the neighbouring Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Moldova were living with HIV. The number had grown to 2.2 million by 2007, a year that saw 50 000 new diagnoses of HIV.

The commission’s strategy paper notes that "the best response to the epidemic remains a combination of health specific and wider social interventions." It identifies "intensifying prevention" as the key to combating HIV, whose main transmission routes are, within the EU, sexual contacts and, in . . . [Full text of this article]


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