Record HIV-carriers have drug access

Almost three in five people infected with HIV, or 21.7 million globally, took antiretroviral therapy in 2017 — a new record for anti-Aids drug access, the UN’s HIV/Aids agency said last week.

There were 36.9 million people living with the immune system-attacking virus in 2017, of whom 15.2 million were not getting the drugs they need — the lowest number since the epidemic exploded, UNAids reported.

Hailing progress in curbing new infections and deaths, the agency nevertheless lamented the mounting human toll: almost 80 million infections and 35.4 million lives lost since the first cases became known in the early 1980s. Progress made to date risks being halted, even reversed, if funding and world attention is allowed to dwindle, the agency warned.

“We are short $7 billion per year to maintain our results and to achieve our objectives for 2020,” UNAids executive director Michel Sidibe said. “Without these resources, there is a big risk of the epidemic rebounding, of an increase in mortality.”

In 2017, about $20.6 billion were available for Aids programmes in low- and middle-income countries which funded about 56% from their own budgets, said the report.

The UN goal is for 90% of all HIV-positive people to know their status by 2020. Of these, at least 90% should receive ART, and HIV be suppressed in 90% of those.

Assessing progress towards the target, UNAids said 1.8 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2017. This was down from about 1.9 million the year before, and 3.4 million at the peak of the epidemic in 1996.

Deaths declined from 990,000 to 940,000 year-on-year, compared to 1.9 million in 2005 and 1.4 million in 2010.

The number of people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) grew from 19.4 million in 2016 to 21.7 million last year — up from a mere 611,000 in the year 2000 and 2.1 million in 2005 — said the report released prior to the International Aids Conference in Amsterdam last week. This helped boost the number of people being able to live with the virus from 36.3 million in 2016 to 36.9 million last year.