We welcome today’s HIV in Scotland: update to 31 December 2024 from Public Health Scotland. The data shows encouraging progress, with Scotland moving closer to the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets:
- 94% of people living with HIV have been diagnosed.
- 91% of those diagnosed are on treatment.
- 95% of people on treatment have a suppressed viral load.
But the report also makes it clear where action is urgently needed.
More women and trans people are now accessing PrEP than ever before, a clear sign of progress, but we must go further by making PrEP more accessible beyond sexual health clinics, including through community pharmacies.
At the same time, we need to scale up HIV testing to find the 6% (estimated 400 people people) living with HIV who remain undiagnosed. This will require a national online testing service and a commitment to effectively roll out opt-out testing in A&E departments.
The data also highlighted that 9% of people already diagnosed are not on treatment, and 5% of those on treatment do not have a suppressed viral load. This shows the urgent need for investment in the third sector to provide wrap-around support for individuals newly diagnosed or those requiring re-engagement with care.
While we are pleased to see first-ever diagnoses in Scotland are falling, the significant number of diagnoses from outside the UK reinforces the importance of supporting migrants, minority ethnic communities and others to engage fully with HIV care and treatment.
We are also seeing a shift in patterns of transmission: for the third year in a row, more first-ever diagnoses were linked to heterosexual transmission than to gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men.
We must raise awareness of the importance of testing and treatment across all communities. Yet Scotland remains an outlier from England and Wales, without a national HIV testing awareness campaign — a gap that must be urgently addressed if we are to meet our goal of eliminating HIV transmission by 2030.