Dutch patients still dying from AIDS due to too-late HIV diagnosis

In the past five years, 22 people died, and 365 people were hospitalized with AIDS in the Netherlands, according to research by Pointer. All of these patients were only diagnosed with HIV when their immune system was already heavily affected or even after they had AIDS. Doctors in the Netherlands don’t test for HIV enough, care providers told Pointer.

HIV is very treatable if you get a timely diagnosis. But late diagnosis can be very dangerous. The virus affects the immune system, making patients more susceptible to viruses and bacteria. In the early stages, it leads to more colds and flu-like symptoms. Eventually, patients can get tuberculosis or cancer.

According to Pointer, figures from Stichting HIV Monitoring showed that 57 percent of people diagnosed with HIV between 2017 and 2021 were diagnosed late. That concerns a total of 1,314 people.

Kees Brinkman, an internist at OLVG Amsterdam, regularly treats patients with an advanced HIV infection. “I see people in my office with severe pneumonia, brain abscesses, and various cancers. A large proportion of these patients have already reached the AIDS stage,” he said to the program. According to Brinkman, the majority of his patients had previously been to a doctor with symptoms but weren’t tested for HIV.

“These are all victims that could have been prevented if they had started treatment in time,’ internist-infectiologist Casper Rokx of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam told Pointer.

According to research physician Saskia Bogers of the Amsterdam University Medical Center, the problem is the stigma that still surrounds HIV. Healthcare providers struggle to talk about it. Doctors don’t recognize the symptoms because HIV is relatively uncommon. And there is still a limited idea of who can get the virus. “Many healthcare professionals only think of homosexual men with many sexual contacts. If someone does not fit that picture, HIV will not be considered.”

Brinkman wants the HIV test to become a standard procedure, with a checklist indicating common symptoms of the virus. “If doctors consulted that list more often, we could detect HIV infections much more quickly. Only then can we put an end to late diagnoses in the Netherlands.”