Progress on AIDS in South Africa points to way forward

published on July 17, 2016 by André Picard, in The Globe and Mail

South Africa has more people living with HIV-AIDS than any other country in the world, a staggering seven million.

But, in the past generation, it has gone from being the poster child for the pandemic’s relentless and unstoppable devastation to a symbol of hope and living proof that HIV-AIDS can be slowed, and maybe even stopped.

In 2000, the last time Durban hosted the International AIDS Conference, there were 4.2 million infected in South Africa, and the rate was doubling every five years.

There were 80,000 babies a year being born with HIV-AIDS, thousands of new orphans weekly, virtually no one on treatment, other than those in research projects, and the government of Thabo Mbeki flirted with fringe groups who argued that AIDS didn’t exist.

Today, as the country prepares to host the 2016 International AIDS Conference, which begins Monday in Durban, the overall number of infected is up, but the number of newly infected has slowed dramatically, from 800,000 a year to about 200,000.

The number of annual deaths has also plummeted, from 450,000 to fewer than 200,000. In the process, life expectancy, which had dipped below 50 (and to 28 in the hardest hit region, KwaZulu-Natal), climbed back up to 62.

Last year, only 5,000 babies were born with HIV-AIDS. Put another way, 1.5 per cent of babies are now born with the virus, down from 30 per cent a generation ago.

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Progress on AIDS in South Africa points to way forward

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