Thanks to treatments, a person with HIV today can expect to live almost as long as someone without the virus.

True if peer-reviewed research or authoritative health bodies (e.g. WHO, UNAIDS, CDC, large cohort studies such as ART-CC) current as of January 2026 show that people with HIV on effective antiretroviral treatment have a life expectancy close to that of people without HIV, within a few years. Mostly true if this holds for people diagnosed and treated early but the gap is somewhat larger in some groups, as long as the evidence still describes it as near-normal. Mixed if the evidence is split on whether the gap is small or substantial. Mostly false if near-normal life expectancy applies only to a narrow group, such as early-treated people in high-income settings, and the claim states it as general, or if the gap is commonly found to be large (for example more than about 10 years). False if the evidence shows that life expectancy with HIV, even with treatment, stays far below that of people without the virus.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 HIV treatment | UNAIDS UNAIDS · 24 September 2026

   “A person living with HIV who starts antiretroviral therapy today will have the same life expectancy as an HIV-negative person of the same age.”

UNAIDS is one of the authoritative health bodies named in the resolution criteria. Its treatment page [E1] says that a person living with HIV who starts antiretroviral therapy today will have the same life expectancy as an HIV-negative person of the same age. That meets the criteria's test that life expectancy on treatment is close to that of people without HIV. The page is dated after the judge-as-of date and gives no cohort figures, but it is a general statement of current understanding, and no evidence contradicts it.