Research and analysis

HPR volume 15 issues 19 and 20: news (November and December 2021)

Updated 19 January 2022

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New AIDS and HIV action plan for 2022 to 2025

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published a new policy paper, Towards Zero - an action plan towards ending HIV transmission, AIDS and HIV-related deaths in England - 2022 to 2025, on 1 December 2021.

This coincided with World Aids Day and the annual official HIV statistics data release, produced by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which presented data to end-December 2020.

The newly released data for England showed that new HIV diagnoses continued to decline in 2020, following the trend of recent years: the year-on-year reduction in new HIV diagnoses was 33% in 2020 compared to 2019 (2,630 compared to 3,950).

However, UKHSA has noted that the 2020 data needs to be considered in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited access to sexual health and HIV services, and changed patterns of sexual behaviour, which together resulted in a decline in HIV testing overall.

For these reasons, the new 4-year action plan is benchmarking its objectives against 2019 statistics which were not affected by COVID-19-related factors.

The new action plan aims to:

  • reduce the number of people diagnosed with HIV infection in England from 2,860 in 2019 to under 600 in 2025
  • reduce the number of people diagnosed with AIDS within 3 months of HIV diagnosis from 219 in 2019 to under 110 in 2025
  • reduce deaths from HIV/AIDS in England from 230 in 2019 to under 115 in 2025

Infection reports in this issue of Health Protection Report (HPR)

Common animal-associated infections (England and Wales): up to third quarter 2021.

Acquired carbapenemase-producing Gram-negative bacteria in England: October 2020 to September 2021.

Laboratory surveillance of pyogenic and non-pyogenic streptococcalbacteraemia in England: 2020 update.

Vaccine coverage reports

Quarterly vaccination coverage statistics for children aged up to 5 years in the UK (COVER programme): July to September 2020.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage in adolescent females and males in England: academic year 2020 to 2021.

Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine (PPV) coverage report, England, April 2020 to March 2021.

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