As the cohort of people living with HIV in the US ages, HIV care programs must rapidly adapt to the changing needs of older adults with HIV.
The US HIV epidemic has drastically shifted from primarily a brief, fatal disease of the young to a chronic, manageable illness that people acquire at any age and also grow older with. While the aging of HIV is a welcome consequence of dramatic improvements in HIV care over the past 40 years, it has created unique challenges for older adults with HIV (OAWH; commonly defined as anyone over age 50 years living with HIV) and the people and programs that care for them. As of 2022, over half of the approximately 1.1 million people living with HIV (PLWH) in the US were over the age of 50 years, and as the general US population continues to age, the same trend is expected to continue in PLWH. OAWH are often long-term survivors, those who have lived through the earlier days of the epidemic and often carry the emotional trauma of that stigma and loss, as well as medical repercussions of lower CD4 nadirs and exposure to older, more toxic antiretrovirals.
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Source : Contagion Live
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