This report is the latest in a series published jointly by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe that has been summarizing data on HIV and AIDS in the WHO European Region and in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) since 2007.
The number of people living with undiagnosed HIV is increasing in the WHO European Region. According to data published today by ECDC and the WHO/Europe, more than 136 000 people were newly diagnosed in 2019 – roughly 20% of these were diagnosed in the EU/EAA and 80% in the eastern part of the European Region. Every second HIV diagnosis (53%) happens at a late stage of the infection, when the immune system has already started to fail. This is a sign that testing strategies in the Region are not working properly to diagnose HIV early.
HIV combination prevention is an approach that brings together single prevention initiatives into a comprehensive programme. This approach considers that the offer of multiple evidence-based interventions in a comprehensive programme will have a greater impact on HIV transmission than investing in a single strategy. In this report we
present and test the feasibility of a novel approach to monitoring the implementation of combination HIV prevention at national level.
This report is part of the 2018 progress reports monitoring the implementation of the Dublin Declaration. It presents the situation among men who have sex with men (MSM), a key group affected by HIV in the WHO European Region, and outlines priorities for action.