Durban — Department of Health director-general Dr Sandile Buthelezi said countries must reinforce HIV prevention leadership entities for multi-sectoral collaboration, oversight and management of prevention responses, to resolve some of the remaining gaps to rebuild momentum to end Aids as a public health threat by 2030.
Buthelezi said this during his presentation at the 11th Aids conference. The conference started on Tuesday afternoon and will end on Friday.
It is taking place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban, under the Theme: “Act, Connect and End the Epidemic”.
In his presentation, Buthelezi revealed the 2025 priority actions identified to resolve remaining gaps to rebuild momentum to end Aids as a public health threat by 2030.
The action points are to:
- Conduct an evidence-driven assessment of HIV prevention programme needs and barriers. Determining the country’s investment needs and working to ensure sustainable financing of HIV prevention.
- Adopting a precision prevention approach for key and priority populations, including differentiated national prevention targets.
In December 2020, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) outlined a set of new targets calling for 95% of all people living with HIV to know their status, 95% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 95% of all people receiving antiretroviral treatment to have viral suppression by 2025.
Speaking of the strategy to drive improvement 95-95-95 cascade he said they would prioritise activities of the nerve centre to focus on second and third 95.
“Break down the 100 facilities with a focus on the metros that have 75 facilities in total. Furthermore, we would identify and focus on the 100 highly burdened facilities for national support,” said Buthelezi.
He added that 100 facilities had been prioritised based on the gap in the antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage in their catchment areas.
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla told delegates that South Africa was currently sitting at 94% of people living with HIV who know their status, while 77% of those who know their status were on antiretroviral treatment. He said 92% of those on treatment had a low viral load.
However, according to Phaahla, South Africa was lagging to meet all of the set targets with respect to men and children under the age of 15. On the other hand, more effort was needed to place and retain more people with HIV on treatment.
A senior researcher, Dr Haroon Moolla from the UCT said the ART coverage needed to be extended and highlighted the role of specific interventions in controlling the epidemic.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995.
Daily News