After Eswatini, Botswana has become the second nation in the world to reach a landmark UN goal towards eradicating AIDS.
The country has met the “95-95-95” target on HIV diagnosis, treatment and viral suppression several years early.
About one in five people in Botswana live with the virus — one of the highest rates in the world — according to the UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS).
But the study led by Botswana’s health ministry found out that the country had already met or surpassed all three thresholds, with a 95-98-98 score. The global average in 2020 was 84-87-90, UNAIDS says.
A Positive Future Ahead
“Botswana is making historic new progress against HIV,” Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society (IAS), told a virtual press briefing presenting the results.
The country is “well positioned to end its HIV epidemic by 2030. To put it simply, these are really stellar results.”
Madisa Mine, the study’s lead author and a Botswana government virologist, said the results were encouraging: “We have translated a hopeless situation into a situation where now there is hope,” he said.
Now both the government and people on medication could look forward to Botswana one day becoming an AIDS-free country, Mine added.
The paper written was based on interviews and blood tests from more than 14,000 people aged 15 to 64.
Another southern African country, the small landlocked kingdom of Eswatini, became the first country to reach the UN target in 2020, UNAIDS says.
Originally from africanews.en
