Tide is turning on killer Aids

UNAids released a new report, "Ending Aids", which said some 53% of all people living with HIV now had access to HIV treatment. Picture: Jason Lee/Reuters Picture: REUTERS/Jason Lee

UNAids released a new report, "Ending Aids", which said some 53% of all people living with HIV now had access to HIV treatment. Picture: Jason Lee/Reuters Picture: REUTERS/Jason Lee

Published Jul 21, 2017

Share

For HIV-affected people globally the tide has turned as some 19.5 million people are now able to access life-saving treatment, and with that Aids-related deaths have halved since 2005.

UNAids  released a new report on Thursday, "Ending Aids", which said some 53% of all people living with HIV now had access to HIV treatment. Some 36.7 million people globally are infected with HIV.

With these improvements, UNAids sees the world has been on track to reach the “global target of 30 million people on treatment by 2020”. In 2016, Aids-related deaths had dropped to 1 million from the 1.9 million in 2005.

UNAids executive director Michel Sidibé said, “We met the 2015 target of 15 million people on treatment and we are on track to double that. We will continue to scale up to reach everyone in need and honour our commitment of leaving no one behind.”

The report said the region which showed the most progress was eastern and southern Africa, which had the greatest number of people affected by HIV, a number which accounts for more than half the people living with HIV in the world.

“Since 2010, Aids-related deaths have declined by 42%. New HIV infections have declined by 29%, including a 56% drop in new HIV infections among children over the same period, a remarkable achievement resulting from HIV treatment and prevention efforts that are putting eastern and southern Africa on track towards ending its Aids epidemic,” the report said.

The report noted that about 70% of people living with HIV knew their status, and of those who knew their status, 77% were able to access treatment; and of those on treatment, 82% were “virally suppressed, protecting their health and helping to prevent transmission of the virus”.

In South Africa, there are about 7 million adults and children living with HIV. Of those, 4 million are women, 2.7 million are men over the age of 15, and 240000 children under the age of 14 are infected, the report said.

There are about 380000 newly-infected adults and children. Of that figure, 200000 are women over the age of 15 and 170000 are men over the age of 15. Some 5100 were children.

Ending Aids found that providing services closer to where people live and work will be a key factor in ending the Aids epidemic and as a result UNAids and the AU are backing an initiative which will recruit and train 2 million community health workers in Africa.

Cape Argus

Related Topics: