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MSF urges all affected countries to take up new WHO ‘test and treat’ guidelines on HIV/AIDS
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Our Bureau, Mumbai
November 26 , 2015
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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomed further global progress on
getting HIV treatment to more people and urged all affected countries to
take up new World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘test and treat’ guidelines
before next June’s UN High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, where donor
governments should commit to a funding plan to close the global
treatment gaps.
According to UNAIDS, 15.8 million people were on
antiretroviral therapy (ART) as of June 2015, an increase of 2.2 million
over the previous year.
“It’s good news the pace of HIV
treatment scale-up continues to increase, with 2.2 million people newly
started on treatment in one year, but to achieve the global goal of
reaching 30 million people with treatment by 2020, we’re going to need
to see three million new people on treatment each year,” said Sharonann
Lynch, HIV and TB policy advisor for MSF’s Access Campaign. “Countries
should waste no time and take up new WHO guidelines that call for all
people living with HIV to be offered immediate treatment.”
MSF’s
experience piloting ‘test and treat’ in Swaziland shows that starting
people on HIV treatment whose immune systems have not yet significantly
deteriorated is accepted among this group and also feasible in
resource-limited contexts. Uptake was 82 per cent among the group with a
CD4 cell count above 500, which was comparable to the group with a
count lower than CD4 500. MSF also implements test and treat in South
Sudan.
In order for countries to upgrade and implement the WHO
guidelines, there must be a mobilisation of political will and financial
support, especially for countries with low HIV treatment coverage that
otherwise risk being left behind. While nearly half of people living
with HIV worldwide have access to treatment, treatment coverage drops
precipitously to less than 25 per cent in countries such as Central
African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South
Sudan.
“Governments that have funded global HIV treatment should
be encouraged by the important progress achieved, but must now put up
what’s needed to speed up scale-up, so every person living with HIV is
offered treatment and is given the support that helps them stick to
treatment for life,” said Lynch. “The success of ‘test and treat’ hinges
on helping as many people as possible reach undetectable levels of HIV
as early in their disease progression as possible.”
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