PARIS — Swaziland, which bears the world’s heaviest HIV burden, has halved the rate of new infections in five years by boosting access to virus-suppressing drugs, researchers said Monday.
The country, where about one in three adults are infected with the AIDS-causing virus, has vastly expanded public programmes to test people for HIV infection and put them on life-saving anti-retroviral treatment (ART).
“Since 2011, the national HIV incidence in Swaziland dropped by almost half,” a research team led by Velephi Okello of the Swazi health ministry said in a written presentation to an HIV science conference in Paris.
Incidence is the word used by epidemiologists for the rate of new infections in a population.
“Sustaining these achievements will be paramount to Swaziland’s success in curbing its severe HIV epidemic,” said the researchers.
In 2011, 31% of adults (aged 18-49) out of a total country population of just over 1,2 million, were infected with HIV, according to government data.
This made Swaziland the country with the highest national rate of new infections, said the authors of the new study, as well as the highest proportion of people living with HIV.
The latest data, based on blood tests from about 11 000 people aged 15 and over, showed that 27% were HIV-positive in 2016. – Nampa-AFP
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