“No AIDS does not affect everyone, but it can knock on all doors”; recalled Professor Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at Tenon hospital (Paris) during a press conference devoted to HIV among seniors. Of the 6,400 people who discovered their HIV status in 2012, 18% were over 50 years old.
Sometimes old contaminations
About 30% of people discovering their seropositivity are already in the AIDS stage or have a low immune level. This reflects a delay of several years after their contamination. Some of the over-50s were thus contaminated ten years, or even twenty years earlier, but the contamination had gone unnoticed. Sometimes despite many “passages” in medicine or surgery, the doctors themselves offer less screening to the elderly. Contamination is linked to unprotected sex, especially when changing partners. This population has less condom reflex than young people. The share of drug users is 1%.
Age-related specifics
Late contamination poses special medical problems. We already know that the transmissibility of the virus is more important in women over 50 because their genital mucous membranes are more fragile. And on the treatment side, the immune system being less efficient and the tolerance of drugs less good, the choice of molecules must be adapted. The day of December 1st, traditionally dedicated to the fight against AIDS, will once again be an opportunity to remind people that screening can be useful at any age after risky driving.
