WASHINGTON — Half of the HIV/AIDS population in the United States will be 50 or older by 2015, a pivotal development that brings new challenges to the treatment and prevention of the disease, experts told a congressional panel last week according to a report from McClatchy’s Washington bureau.
Drug resistance, other diseases, high rates of depression and a lack of prevention, screening and early diagnosis could all pose significant problems as the population of Americans with HIV or AIDS ages, they said during a hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, according to the McClatchy article.
As research for a cure for AIDS continues, there is a vital need to examine the aging AIDS population, since any drug or vaccine must now work on an older population, said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the committee’s chairman.
“The so-called graying of the population comes with the need to refocus our work on these new challenges,” Nelson said.
