South Africa’s progress in tackling the Aids and HIV crisis has stalled in one of its most populous provinces, new research has found.
The number of new cases of the infection in KwaZulu-Natal province, centred around the eastern port of Durban, have stopped falling after years of steep declines.
Data from a long-running study following thousands of people also showed those with detectable levels of virus in their blood had risen slightly despite years of medics prescribing antiretroviral drugs.
Researchers said the peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet HIV medical journal “provides a stark warning on prevailing HIV trends in rural South Africa, where ground is being lost in the fight against the HIV epidemic”.
The researchers, led by scientists at Durban’s Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) and Stellenbosch University’s South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA), used a 20-year study which has tested nearly 60,000 people.
Analysis showed that after steep reductions in HIV incidence from 2013 to 2018, incidence rates for both males and females showed little or no decrease from 2019 onwards.
Incidence rates had continued to fall for young people under 35, but that had been offset by a lack of progress for those in middle age.
Secondly, the proportion of those with HIV who had detectable levels of virus in the blood also rose.
Under United Nations targets for 2030, 95 per cent of those with HIV should have the virus suppressed in their blood by antiretroviral drugs. The study found the level was more than 30 per cent below that.
The paper concluded: “Our analyses of more than two decades of HIV testing data from a population cohort in rural South Africa reveal troubling trends in the state of the HIV epidemic.
“Although major strides have been made, our findings show that progress across three key HIV epidemic metrics has stalled (and in some cases begun to reverse) in recent years.
“Taken together, our findings challenge the narrative that South Africa is steadily progressing towards epidemic control and has continued to move closer to the UNAIDS 2030 targets.
“Rather, data from one of the world’s largest population-based HIV cohorts provide early warning signs that the current HIV response will not suffice to drive the epidemic towards low levels of endemicity.”
The faltering momentum could have been partly caused by early gains from the mass introduction of antiretrovirals having now already been used up, the paper said.
Disruption to HIV services by Covid-19 lockdowns probably also “widened gaps in treatment coverage and viral suppression”.
There has also been a demographic shift in those who are infected. People with HIV have become older, but people of their own age who they mix with and have sex with do not see themselves as being at risk.
“The ageing of the epidemic has shifted the burden of new infections towards increasingly older adults, who might be less likely to perceive themselves at risk and remain underserved by existing prevention programmes,” the paper suggested.
Elphas Okango, lead author, said: “These results provide a timely insight into the changing dynamics of the HIV epidemic.
“This should be a call to action. We need to build on the successes of the past but use the tools we have at our disposal more effectively to drive the epidemic towards elimination.”
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Source: www.yahoo.com
