African Teens With HIV Underdiagnosed

A growing number of older children and adolescents are living with undiagnosed HIV and AIDS in Africa, according to Zimbabwean researchers.

The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, says a delay in diagnosing these teens reflects a strongly held assumption that HIV in late childhood is unusual.

The phenomenon of long-term survival is poorly recognized and until recently has been almost positively resisted by the international HIV community, said Dr. Liz Corbett, a Wellcome Trust fellow in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in Zimbabwe, said in a statement. Many assume that survival from birth to adolescence with HIV is so unlikely without treatment, it’s not an issue.

These assumptions are wrong, Corbett said. Around one in 10, and perhaps even one in four, infected infants may survive into late childhood or early adolescence without diagnosis or treatment.