People with HIV now have a near-normal life expectancy thanks to improvements in treatments, a new research suggests.
The life expectancy of a 20-year-old who started antiretroviral therapy in 2010 is 10 years longer than when it was first used in 1996, the study published in The Lancet HIV said.
The paper said a European 20-year-old with HIV could now expect to live to nearly 70 years old.
Doctors and charities called the increase in life expectancy for people with the virus in Europe and the US a “tremendous medical achievement”.
However, they added that there are still too many people unaware they have the virus.
The study authors, from the University of Bristol, said they hoped their findings would “decrease stigmatisation of people living with HIV and help them to obtain insurance or employment”.
They put the success of the new treatments down to the newer drugs having fewer side effects and being better at preventing the virus from replicating in the body.
It is also harder for the virus to build up a resistance to the most recent drugs.
Antiretroviral therapy, described as "one of the greatest public health success stories of the past 40 years", involves a combination of three or more drugs which block the normal progress of HIV.
