Prevention in the country’s HIV response

published on January 28, 2016 by Samkelo Mahlalela, in Swazi Observer

Former executive director of UNICEF James Grant, estimated that getting medical and health knowledge to those who needed it, and applying it, could have prevented 34 million deaths each year in the late 1980s.

Fast forward to the new millennium, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair is credited with saying, “In this new environment the most important commodities of a nation are information and knowledge.”

Information available now indicates that there is a strong global consensus that tools now exist to end the AIDS epidemic. This confidence is based on a combination of major scientific breakthroughs and accumulated lessons learned over more than a decade of scaling up the AIDS response worldwide. The achievement of targets built on these tools now needs to be fast-tracked.

Also, we know now that HIV treatment can dramatically extend the lifespan of people living with HIV and effectively prevent HIV transmission. There are also many proven opportunities for HIV prevention beyond medicines, including condom programming, behavior change, voluntary medical male circumcision and programmes with key populations. These have clearly demonstrated their capacity to sharply lower rates of new HIV infections. We have evidence too, that HIV programmes are dramatically strengthened when they are combined with social and structural approaches - for example, a recent analysis concluded this could reduce new HIV infections among sex workers by a third or more.

Sceptics may argue that HIV infections may not disappear in the foreseeable future, but the truth is that the AIDS epidemic can be ended as a national health threat. There are major benefits of fast-tracking the AIDS response in the country. The Swaziland Estimates and Projections Report 2015, shows that:

n In 2015, new HIV infections were estimated to be 9, 839 but a steady decline is expected over the years, declining to 8, 756 in 2020

n HIV incidence in the 15-49 year olds, currently estimated at 2.23 is expected to decline to 1.58 in 2020

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Prevention in the country’s HIV response

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