according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on 2018 data, the most recent available. The CDC estimates that 14 percent of Americans living with the virus, or one in seven, are unaware they have it and therefore not accessing treatment.
Early treatment is key to preventing progression to a diagnosis of AIDS, also referred to as stage 3 HIV, marking a serious compromise of the immune system, whereas with treatment, a person with HIV can have a normal lifespan.
But despite the successes there remains no cure or vaccine.Annual HIV diagnoses are down to about two-thirds of where they were at the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s, but progress in reducing the virus’s spread has stalled in the past few years.