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UNAIDS reports 20 percent drop in HIV infections in Tanzania

Xinhua, December 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

Tanzania's fight against HIV appears to be bearing fruit with new infection rates dropping by over 20 percent in the past few years, according to a new report released on Wednesday by the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The report titled Fact Sheet November 2016 focused on three areas--the number of people living with HIV, access to antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) by people living with HIV, and HIV new infections.

Leonard Maboko, executive director of the Tanzania Commission for Aids (TACAIDS) said the decrease in new infection rates was recorded between 2010 and last year, with 54,000 people estimated to have been infected in 2015 alone.

According to the findings, about 960,000 new HIV cases were recorded in the Eastern and Southern Africa zone in 2015, but new infections had dropped by 14 percent since 2010.

In the zone, about 56,000 new infections to children were recorded in 2015, a 66 percent decrease since 2010.

"Until June 2016, people living with HIV accessing ARVs were about 18 million worldwide, 10.3 million in the Eastern and Southern African zone, and 800,000 in Tanzania, equivalent to 53 percent of all Tanzanians living with the virus at that time," the report said.

The report further noted that the new HIV infection rate is estimated to be 2.1 million people globally, whereby new infections to children dropped by almost 50 percent, in the sense that while 290,000 children were infected in 2010, the number had dropped to 150,000 by 2015.

It showed that last year, about 37 million people were living with HIV worldwide, 19 million in the Eastern and Southern Africa zone, and 1.4 million in Tanzania.

The report also unveiled UNAIDS' plan to suppress new HIV/AIDS cases by 2030, starting with attaining the "three 90s' goal".

This means 90 percent of people suspected to be living with the HIV virus should be tested and made aware of their current health status; 90 percent of infected people should immediately start using ARVs, and 90 percent of those who have access to the drug should maintain sustainable viral suppression, according to the report. Endit