About HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day

June 5, 2019

Despite what you’ve heard, AIDS is not over. When you have lived with HIV/AIDS for decades, you recall all the hype about the end being right around the next curve. Wish all you want.

But understand the ending the epidemic narrative it has a downside. It means HIV is it no big deal. In the general population think “HIV is no big deal anything”, it’s just one pill a day now” or that there’s already a cure.

The stories of HIV Long-Term Survivors are rich and diverse. Many, maybe most, never imaged aging with HIV. We were planning on dying young. Surviving AIDS for over three decades is different than folks who tested after the late 1990s. Now, the median age of People Living with HIV in the US is 59.

There is an enduring misconception that HIV is a disease of the young, and in particular young gay and bisexual men, according to Mark Brennan-Ing, but it is estimated that in developed countries with well-developed health care systems, almost half of all people living with HIV are 50 or older. In some countries, that number is expected to increase to 70 percent by 2020.

Read the entire article in about Mark Brennan-Ing in APA: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/older-adults-hiv