“What I can do is ensure that people who are LGBT – if their clinics are closed down because they are LGBT – we can give them medicine”. Sub-Saharan Africa continued to be a challenge, accounting for three-quarters of new HIV infections (1.8 million) in 2015.
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That’s the disturbing gist of a new report released here at the 21st International AIDS Conference by my organization, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
UN Members States, in June 2016, adopted a new political declaration to fast-track progress towards combating HIV and AIDS over the next five years and end the epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
ART coverage is highly variable and massive scale-up of treatment is needed in the Middle East, north Africa, eastern Europe and east Asia where only around a fifth of people living with HIV receive ART, and in central Asia where treatment reaches less than a third of people with HIV.
The NACC director also said there is no consistency in what works best.
In 2015, 41% of the people living with HIV were using ART, as compared to less than 2% in 2000. Those goals aim for 90% of people living with HIV knowing their HIV status, 90% of people diagnosed with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of people receiving antiretroviral therapy experiencing viral suppression.
A daily dose of anti-HIV medication nearly eradicates the risk of infection for people in a relationship with an HIV positive partner, a study showed on Tuesday, raising hopes of reducing HIV rates among one of Africa’s highest risk groups.
“We must fund HIV prevention, care and treatment”.
In regard to mortality, women tend to die at younger ages from HIV than men, likely due to age-disparate relationships in which men have sex with younger women.
According to the study, more than 1.8 million Kenyans were living with HIV in 2015, and 39 per cent were on antiretroviral therapy drugs to slow the disease’s progression.
The results of IHME’s study underscore the need for more effective efforts to prevent new infections, as well as additional funding for these efforts.
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However, on average, the new annual infections rate in Kenya is lower than that of South Africa. “We need to review what worked well in the past and invest in it”, she said.
