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Botswana meets ‘historic’ UN target on HIV: report – Science-Environment News – Report by AFR

Botswana has become the second nation in the world, after Eswatini, to meet a landmark UN target to eradicate AIDS, researchers said Wednesday in what health experts called “outstanding results”.

The country reached the so-called “95-95-95” target for HIV diagnosis, treatment and virus suppression several years earlier, according to a study released ahead of a global conference on the disease.

According to the United Nations AIDS Agency (UNAIDS), about one in five people in Botswana is living with the virus – one of the highest rates in the world.

The agency wanted 95 percent of HIV-positive people to know their status, 95 percent of those diagnosed with medication and 95 percent of those treated show signs of suppressing the virus in their blood by 2025.

However, the study, led by Botswana’s Department of Health, found that with a score of 95-98-98, the country has already met or exceeded all three thresholds. The global average in 2020 was 84-87-90 according to UNAIDS.

“Botswana is making historic new strides in the fight against HIV,” said Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society (IAS), at a virtual news conference unveiling the findings.

The country is “well positioned to end its HIV epidemic by 2030. To put it simply, these are truly outstanding results.”

Madisa Mine, the lead author of the study and Botswana government virologist, said the results were encouraging.

“We translated a hopeless situation into a situation where there is now hope,” he said.

Now both the government and the people taking medication can look forward to Botswana becoming an AIDS-free country one day, Mine added.

That was a far cry from when he began work on the disease two decades ago, and it appeared the nation was “on the verge of extinction” due to the high rate of infections.

– ‘Makeable’ –

The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal, is based on interviews and blood tests of more than 14,000 people aged 15 to 64.

Another South African country, the small landlocked kingdom of Eswatini, became the first country to reach the UN 2020 target, according to UNAIDS.

UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Matthew Kavanagh said Botswana’s progress was due to a number of factors, including government investment and the rapid roll-out of self-testing.

In 2002, Botswana became the first African country to offer free antiretroviral drugs, which help contain the virus and prevent it from infecting others.

And in 2019, the country of 2.3 million people decriminalized same-sex relationships — something Kavanagh said “has helped bring more and more people into foster care.”

Botswana has shown that it is possible to contain the disease, said IAS President Adeeba Kamarulzaman.

“It is not an easy task. But it shows that with investment and political commitment, and with communities working to provide the services needed, it can be done,” she told AFP from Montreal ahead of the 24th International AIDS Conference, which kicks off in the Canadian city on Friday.

According to UNAIDS, as of 2020, about 38 million people worldwide, including nearly two million children, were living with HIV, and more than 600,000 died from AIDS-related diseases.

East and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions, accounting for more than half of all cases.

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