Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi revealed on Thursday that more than 520,000 people living with HIV/AIDS have been initiated onto the antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme as part of the government’s Close the Gap campaign aimed at reaching targets to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
The Minister was speaking during a briefing on the status of the HIV/Aids and TB Campaign in South Africa.
Motsoaledi said UNAIDS has calculated that to bring an end to AIDS as a public health threat, a country should reach a target of 95-95-95.
This means that 95% of HIV positive people must know their status, 95% of those who are positive should be put on treatment, and 95% of those on treatment should achieve viral suppression, whereby they stop transmitting the virus to other people.
“We know that there are 7.9 million people in South Africa who are estimated by UNAIDS to be HIV positive. At the moment, in terms of UNAIDS targets, we are at 96-79-94. Today we have about 5.9 million people on ART. Mother-to-child transmission has reduced dramatically, and we have reduced deaths from HIV and concomitantly reduced the deaths from TB.”
This indicates that the largest gap in the country’s HIV response is among those who have tested positive but are not receiving treatment.
Motsoaledi said the Department has calculated that to move from the 79 to 95, 1.1 million people who are known to be HIV positive but not on ARVs need to be initiated into treatment.
He said with a budget of R659m for the campaign, the government’s initial target of 100,000 people reached by this stage has already been surpassed.
“I can report to you today that we have reached 520,700 people living with HIV/Aids and initiated them on treatment, which includes women, men, and children. This is more than 50% of the target we set ourselves to reach by 31 December 2025. This work has been made possible by the budget reprioritised from the HIV/AIDS conditional grants.”
Motsoaledi attributed this success within a short space of time to the weekly check-in meetings with provinces, where reports that come from the ground are verified in the presence of all provincial colleagues before they are regarded as final figures for reporting.
“It is for this reason that we are even able to disaggregate the number of newly diagnosed/initiated against those who are returning to care. Based on this, we are confident that we will reach the target of 1.1 million by the end of the year.”
The Minister also commended the role played by civil society in the mobilisation. “Without them, we would have come nowhere near this figure.”
He noted that as part of this response, the team from the National Department of Health and the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) have started a programme of provincial roadshows through which they engage provincial structures, including provincial and district AIDS Councils, traditional leaders, and civil society.
He said targets were set for all nine provinces, districts, and facilities.
The Minister added that the country has a stable supply of ARVs because we procure 90% of ARVs from government fiscus, supported by 10% from the Global Fund.
He stated that the Global Fund has pledged an extra R1billion for ARV procurement to ensure a sustainable supply and that some of these orders have already been signed off.
Referring to the withdrawal of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) by the US, which amounts to R7.9bn, Motsoaledi said: “We want to [make] it categorically clear, under no circumstances will we allow this massive work performed over a period of more than a decade and a half to collapse and go up in smoke.”
