Chance to beat HIV/AIDS for good

THE world has a "window of opportunity" to break the HIV/AIDS epidemic for good, according to the United Nations HIV/AIDS programme UNAIDS.

Business Day, 19 November 2014

In a report ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, UNAIDS said the global HIV/AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030 if the world met a set of ambitious "fast-track" targets within five years. But it warned that if the global community failed to accelerate its current momentum, the epidemic would worsen.

SA is among the countries that has committed to the fast-track targets, which include ensuring that 90 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS know their status, getting 90 percent of them on treatment, and ensuring the virus is suppressed in 90 percent of patients on treatment.

Other targets include reducing the annual number of new HIV infections to 500 000 in 2020 and 200 000 in 2030. UNAIDS said in its report that reaching its fast-track targets would avert 28-million new HIV/AIDS infections and 21-million HIV/AIDS-related deaths by 2030, and would end the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a public health threat.

Almost 6-million infections in children would be prevented, and there would be a seventeen-fold return on HIV/AIDS investments, it said. Focused investments, it said, will be needed for the countries, cities and communities most affected by HIV/AIDS, adding that if this opportunity is missed, by 2030 the epidemic could spring to even higher levels than today. It noted that if more people were infected, the demand for treatment would rise and costs would increase. UNAIDS said the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS had stabilised at the end of last year at about 35-million worldwide, and there were about 2.1-million new infections last year. It had killed about 39-million of the 78-million people affected since it emerged in the 1980s. New HIV/AIDS infections had fallen 38 percent since 2001 and HIV/AIDS deaths had dropped 35 percent since a peak in 2005.

Download the latest UNAIDS Report from:
http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/JC2686_WAD2014report_en.pdf