December 1st 2018 marked the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day. The theme for this year is “Know Your Status” with a focus on the importance of HIV testing in tackling the worldwide HIV epidemic. In time for World AIDS Day, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) published a new report describing the latest epidemiology of HIV in Ireland and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) released a report detailing HIV in Europe. The key points relating to the epidemiology of HIV in Ireland and the EU/EEA are described.

There were 17 diagnoses among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Ireland in 2017, similar to the number of diagnoses in 2016. Transmission due to injecting drug use also accounted for 4% of HIV diagnoses in the EU/EEA overall but was the probable route of transmission for one quarter or more of the cases in Lithuania (62%), Iceland (33%) and Latvia (33%).