What is Needed to Step Up the Pace on HIV Prevention and Treatment? Source: AidsMap By: Keith Alcorn Date: 21 July 2014 Stepping up the pace, the theme of AIDS 2014, will require a new focus on key populations and geographical concentration of HIV, as well as intensified efforts to expand coverage of HIV testing and treatment, the 20th International AIDS Conference heard on Monday, in Melbourne. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), reviewed the global state of the epidemic and treatment access. Despite impressive progress in scaling up condom use, counselling and testing, medical male circumcision, needle exchange and antiretroviral therapy coverage in low- and middle-income settings over the past decade, 1.5 million people died of HIV-related illness and 2.1 million people became infected with HIV in 2013 – a rate of 6000 each day. At present, approximately 45% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 39% of people living with HIV are receiving antiretroviral therapy and 29% are retained in care with undetectable viral load. To achieve an end to AIDS, a much greater focus is needed on a smaller number of countries. One third of all people living with HIV are in South Africa, Nigeria and India, and 80% of the global population of people living with HIV live in just 20 countries, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa but also including larger middle-income countries such as China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Russia and Thailand. Prof. Karim warned that the vision of the end of AIDS represents an aspiration, but after important advances in biomedical prevention, epidemic control is the realistic goal. Epidemic control requires the reduction of HIV-related mortality and morbidity to locally accepted levels, so that HIV is no longer a leading cause of death. It also requires that HIV transmission be reduced so that not every HIV infection results in the onward transmission of HIV. These goals are now achievable with the biomedical prevention tools available. By combining male medical circumcision, early antiretroviral therapy and pre-exposure prophylaxis, mathematical modelling has shown that the HIV epidemic could shift from a state in which each HIV infection results in an average of three onward transmissions to one in which each infection results in less than one new transmission in the lifetime of a person living with HIV. See the entire article here: aidsmap/page/2892723/
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:00:00 +0000
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