The African Union said the latest results released by UNaids show that through shared responsibility and global solidarity, Africa has made great strides in the fight against Aids and is on track to achieve set targets if investments are increased.
“The progress, particularly in our eastern and southern Africa regions, demonstrates that the political commitments of African countries and
the global community are being translated into tangible action.
"However, it is too early to celebrate, as we need to engage with the issues that we are off-track on, including addressing HIV in children, young people and regions that are lagging the rest,” said AU Commissioner for Social Affairs Amira El Fadil.
The AU said the eastern and southern African regions, which had been most affected by HIV, had achieved the most progress globally.
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, the union said.
El Fadil said the union was pushing for increased domestic investment in health in the context of impressive rates of economic growth in many African countries.
During the July 2017 Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian heads of state and government commended the significant progress made in the reduction of mortality and new rates of HIV infection on the continent.
They committed to further pursue initiatives to build strong human resources for health, including harnessing the role of community health workers, and endorsed the
2 million initiative that sought to create a new cadre of health workers to further strengthen community health systems.
The AU said that global solidarity and shared responsibility to stop new HIV-infections among children had yielded results.
Around 76% of pregnant women living with HIV had access to antiretroviral medicines in 2016, up from 47% in 2010.
New HIV infections among children globally have halved, from 300 000 in 2010 to 160 000 in 2016, according to the union.
“Five-high burden African countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda, have already met the milestone of diagnosing and providing lifelong antiretroviral therapy to 95% of pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV.
“However, in west and central Africa the data shows that only 42% of the 6.1 million people living with HIV in the region knew their HIV status, and only 35% were accessing HIV treatment while only one in four people living with HIV were virally suppressed in 2016.
“Similarly, in the Middle East and north Africa, just over half of the people living with HIV knew their HIV status, with less than half of those on HIV treatment.
"Only one out of five people living with HIV was virally suppressed.”