UNAIDS Reports Sharp Drop In New HIV Infections In Some African Countries

By Brittany Ngo for Intellectual Property Watch

Since 2009, seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced new HIV infections among children by 50 percent, and others have made significant progress, according to a new report by UNAIDS. But efforts in some countries have stalled, it said.

The new report, titled, “2013 Progress Report on the Global Plan towards elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive,” (Global Plan) showed that Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia were successful in reducing incidence of HIV infection by half, while Tanzania and Zimbabwe were also reported to have made substantial progress.

The report highlights the “130,000 fewer new HIV infections among children across the 21 Global Plan priority countries in Africa – a drop of 38% since 2009.”

“The progress in the majority of countries is a strong signal that with focused efforts every child can be born free from HIV,” said Michel Sidibé, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). “But progress has stalled in some countries with high numbers of new HIV infections. We need to find out why and remove the bottlenecks which are preventing scale-up.”

Though access to HIV treatment has doubled from 2009-2012 in Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, the report says, “urgent steps need to be taken to improve early diagnosis of HIV in children and ensure timely access to antiretroviral treatment.”

The Global Plan initiative is spearheaded by UNAIDS and the United States Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). For 2015, the Global Plan targets a 90 percent reduction in the number of children newly infected with HIV and a 50 percent reduction in the number of AIDS-related maternal deaths.

Brittany Ngo is currently completing her Master’s in Health Policy and Global Health at the Yale School of Public Health and previously obtained a Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics from Georgetown University. Through her studies she has developed an interest in health-related intellectual property issues. She is a summer intern at Intellectual Property Watch.