Enhanced Progress Report: National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB

The South African National AIDS Council has released the Enhanced Progress Report: National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB (2012-2016) in advance of preparing the plan for the next five years. "The report shows that South Africa has achieved its targets for antiretroviral treatment and for the prevention of mother-to-child treatment. We can all be very proud of these achievements. More than 3 million people are on antiretroviral treatment, of which the majority are in the public sector and are on the new one-pill-once-a-day combination. This makes our treatment programme the largest in the world. Of the 15 million people on treatment globally, more than 20% live in South Africa so our contribution to the global target has been substantial. We must acknowledge however, that this level of effort and investment in the treatment programme is necessary precisely because of the large number of people who are HIV+ in our country as well as the evidence that putting people on treatment saves lives and prevents new infections.

The report shows that the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate is now 1.5% at 6 weeks post-partum against the target set in the NSP of less than 2%. With no programme in place more than 70 000 babies were born HIV+, however, today the number is less than 7 000. 

With respect to prevention, the incidence of HIV has declined by about 20% since its peak in 2003 and 2004. Whilst much has been done, we have not reached our NSP target of a 50% reduction in 5 years. Many considered this target to be too ambitious when we set the target, though all agreed that ambitious targets for prevention are essential for the control of the epidemic."