South Africa is behind target on efforts to ensure 95% of people with HIV are on sustained treatment, and in an attempt to remedy this, their supply of ARV medication might be upped to six months’ worth instead of the current one to three months, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said last week.
SA has the world’s biggest HIV/Aids burden – 7.8bn people – yet while it is on track to meet the UN target of 95% of people with HIV knowing their status by 2025, it is slow in ensuring 95% of those diagnosed with the disease are on sustained treatment, and that 95% of people on treatment are virally suppressed.
BusinessLIVE reports that just 76.4% of people with HIV will be on treatment in 2025, according to projections from the Thembisa model run by researchers at the University of Cape Town.
At a Cape Town meeting convened by the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), last week, Phaahla admitted the Health Department was not meeting its HIV treatment targets, a point flagged by the National Treasury in last week’s budget.
Only 5.5m people were on treatment by 31 March 2023, and 6m are estimated to be on treatment now. The uptake of antiretroviral treatment (ARV) was “running significantly below target”, the Treasury said in the Estimates of National Expenditure.
Phaahla said it was not clear why so many people were not on treatment, and the subject would be under discussion at the meeting.
“Do our facilities take too long confirming the diagnosis and initiating treatment? If not, is it follow-up?”
There had been some improvement after the knock during Covid-19, “where we went down to around 73% of people on treatment”, he added. “We have now recovered to just under 80%, but there is still a gap.”
Providing patients with pills for six months instead of a supply of the current one to three months would help people stick with their treatment. But other measures were needed too, he said.
Pepfar ambassador John Nkengasong said SA was integral to efforts to end HIV/Aids as a public health threat by 2030, because of the high infection rate.
“We will not win the battle … if it is not won in South Africa,” he said. “This country has made tremendous progress, but still has challenges.”
It also had a very high rate of new infections among young women, he pointed out.
The Thembisa model puts the rate of new infections among girls and young women aged between 15 and 24 at 0.97% in 2023, and at 0.26% among boys and men in the same age bracket.
BusinessLIVE article – Health department considers six-month supply of ARVs (Restricted access)
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