Nearly 5,500 people discovered their HIV status in France in 2023, a year of further increase in the number of HIV tests, according to data published this Friday, October 11 by Public Health France.
“With 7.5 million HIV serologies carried out in 2023, the increase in HIV screening activity has accelerated, half driven by the increase in the HIVTest system, screening without a prescription and free in the laboratory for insured persons. social, implemented from 2022“, notes the agency.
Around 3,650 people were infected with HIV in France in 2023 (i.e. an incidence rate of 5.3 per 100,000 inhabitants), and that same year, nearly 5,500 people discovered their HIV status. After falling in 2020, the start of the Covid crisis, discoveries of HIV status have been progressing since.
In 2023, this “increase particularly affects people born abroad, in particular women infected through heterosexual intercourse and men who have sex with men” (MSM), observes Public Health France, emphasizing “the need to guarantee give people born abroad access to care and to intensify preventive actions towards them.
Use of more frequent screening
However, if we look at the entire period 2012-2023, the number of HIV discoveries has decreased by 10%.
This long-term reduction is more marked among homosexuals born in France, in particular by “more frequent use of screening (…) allowing more rapid treatment of HIV-positive people, and by the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for some of them,” according to the agency.
But late diagnoses remain frequent (43% of discoveries in 2023), representing a loss of opportunity for care and a risk of transmission of HIV to partners before starting antiretroviral treatment.
At the regional level, the HIV epidemic remains marked by “a particularly worrying situation in Guyana, and to a lesser extent in Mayotte, the West Indies and Ile-de-France”, notes Public Health France.
And other STIs
Also in 2023, the number of people diagnosed with one of the main bacterial sexually transmitted infections, Chlamydia trachomatis (55,500), gonorrhea (23,000) and syphilis (5,800), has increased, as it has for several years.
This increase results, according to SpF, from an increased circulation of these infections, but also from increased screening – which could further increase thanks to the system in place since September 2023 for a test without a prescription in the laboratory.
If reimbursed screenings mainly concerned women, bacterial STIs are at least as common in men (Chlamydia trachomatis), or even much more (syphilis and gonorrhea).
With Agence France-Presse
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