Five facts about HIV in 2025

HIV treatment is free in the UK. Anyone, regardless of whether they live, work or are visiting the UK, have a visa or don’t have a visa, is able to get tested and treated for HIV for free.

For example, when someone living with HIV is visiting the UK and runs out of medications, they are able to get enough of the drugs they take to cover them until they get back home at no charge to them. It’s the same if you want to take an HIV test – you will be given a test no questions asked and at no cost to you.

All testing and treatment for HIV is free and confidential, no information about you will be shared outside of those services. The UK took the decision to make testing and treatment free for everyone a long time ago, to help stop new HIV transmissions and ensure that people living with HIV get the treatment they needed.

After a person is diagnosed with HIV they can start treatment straight away. This allows you to have the best outcomes as the treatment helps fight the virus and protects your health. Treatment brings the level of HIV down to such low levels that it cannot be passed on to your sexual partners and you are able to live a long and healthy life.

People living with HIV who are on effective treatment cannot pass on the virus. Because the medications are so effective, in 3 to 6 months levels of HIV are ‘undetectable’ in tests. This means it cannot be passed on to sexual partners and allows someone living with HIV to have a long and healthy life. This has been proved both in two major studies and with real life experience, where high levels of treatment for people diagnosed with HIV are linked with large reductions in new infections.

An estimated 4,700 people in England are currently living with HIV and don’t know it. It’s a major concern that nearly five thousand people living with HIV don’t yet know it and many of them might not think they need to test for HIV. It’s a problem that needs to be resolved, and it can be done. This is what you can do:

• Get tested yourself. Make it a regular part of your health checks. Once a year is recommended.

• Encourage friends and family to get tested. Point out campaigns about HIV testing and the need for people to test to know their status to make sure they are not living with HIV and don’t know it.

• Challenge stigma around HIV. Correct people that say that HIV is a judgement or punishment, that it only affects bad people or that people deserve it. Remind people that HIV is a condition that can affect anyone, it’s not a ‘them’ thing, it affects people from many communities.

• Keep informed and updated. Lots of people are still working with information from years ago when it was thought that HIV is a ‘death sentence’. Effective treatment means that people living with HIV can live long and healthy lives and not pass the virus on.

It’s important to know that the longer someone lives with undiagnosed HIV the more effect the virus will have on their health. It also means that the virus is more likely to be passed on.

Someone starting treatment as early as possible after infection, before the virus starts to seriously damage the immune system, means they will have a longer, healthier life and stops them passing the virus on to their sexual partners.

The UK can end new cases of HIV by 2030. The first step is making sure as many people as possible test for HIV. Testing is the key to helping us get to this goal. The more people who test the more likely we are to find the people living with HIV that don’t currently know it.

The more people that test, the more normal it becomes for everyone and the more it challenges the stigma around HIV and testing. The more we can challenge the stigma that stops people testing and getting treatment, the more likely we are to stop HIV being passed on.

Testing for HIV is quick and easy - tests are available not just at your GP or local sexual health clinic but from your local community organisations, or you can send for a free or low-cost kit online to do at home. You can also buy tests to do at home from places like Tesco’s pharmacies, Boots and Lloyds Pharmacies.

Testing for HIV needs to be a normal natural part of your health care routine. Take a test – know your HIV status.

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