Improved life expectancy of people living with HIV: who is left behind?

The introduction of combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been one of the great public health success stories of the past 40 years. ART has led to increased survival in people living with HIV, and subsequently to individual and societal gains worldwide, because of the marked improvements in its potency, side-effect profile, and simplicity of use.1 Results from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 052 study have clearly proven the efficacy of ART for prevention of transmission,2 while the TEMPRANO and START studies have shown that early ART initiation reduces the risk of serious clinical conditions, the development of AIDS, and death