Botswana is already close to reaching the 90-90-90 target for testing, treatment and viral suppression, and is ahead of the United States and most European countries in its efforts to improve treatment coverage, Tendani Gaolathe of the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2016) in Boston on Wednesday.
Furthermore it has achieved this level of coverage when providing treatment to people with CD4 cell counts below 350 cells/mm3, even before moving to providing treatment for everyone diagnosed with HIV infection.
An analysis of treatment coverage in a large population-based study of antiretroviral treatment as prevention – the PopART study – also found that substantial increases in treatment coverage had been achieved as a result of a comprehensive package of home-based HIV testing and linkage to care in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, and in Zambia.