Homosexual men are being advised to have HIV tests as soon as possible after information suggests treatment is more effective if it is started at the earliest opportunity.

The charity Crusaid said that because of scientific advances, people with HIV should start receiving treatment before they get ill and not wait for Aids symptoms to begin.

Until now Aids charities have been reluctant to encourage HIV testing because there was little that could be done to help patients before the illness developed. But now advertisements have been placed in the gay press to get over the message of the change in thinking and the dramatic improvments in treatment..

James Deutsch, chief executive of Crusaid

James Deutsch, an HIV-positive patient at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, who is chief executive of Crusaid, received the new triple combination treatments, which have helped him remain fit and continue with Aids charity work.

Mr Deutsch said: "Most people don't realise that medical opinion is now that you should start HIV treatment before you become ill.

"So you've got to test if you're going to know. I was tested and started treatment for HIV before I became ill. I've never had to stop working."

Act while immune system 'relatively intact'

Professor of HIV medicine, Dr Brian Gazzard, said he had been looking after HIV patients since 1981. Last Christmas there had been 40 people in his ward, and this year there had been just 20.

He said: "This is due to the improvement in treatment, and to an understanding that that treatment needs to be given earlier in the disease when the immune system is relatively intact."

Meanwhile, scientists in Paris have discovered a new genetic abnormality which makes some people resistant to HIV infection.

In the medical journal, the Lancet, the doctors say this mutation and another already discovered might help in the long term in the fight against the disease.
 

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