Peru managed to reduce AIDS-related mortality by 40% in the 2010-2016 period, thus posting some of the best results in the field in Latin America, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) revealed.
Peru's efforts to tackle the virus were featured in UNAIDS' latest report "Ending AIDS: Progress towards the 90-90-90 targets," presented on Thursday worldwide.
"In Latin America, Peru has recorded the sharpest reduction in HIV mortality since 2000," Alberto Stella, UNAIDS Director for Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador told El Peruano official gazette.
According to the expert, such result is proof of the Peruvian State's serious involvement in the issue and shows outstanding gaps to work on so as to tame the epidemic by 2030.
90-90-90 targets in Peru
To this end, the Andean nation —and the world— needs to reach UNAIDS' 90-90-90 targets by 2020.
"According to this scheme, by this year 90% of HIV-infected people should be aware of their diagnosis, 90% of HIV-positive people should receive antiretroviral therapy and 90% of people under antiretroviral therapy should have suppressed the virus," Stella explained.
"This way, 75% of people living with HIV worldwide would be virally suppressed and would not transmit the virus," he added.
Regarding the first goal, the UNAIDS officer said 65% of people living with HIV in Peru know of their status.
"From this group, 46% have access to antiretroviral therapy in Peru nowadays. And finally, 37% of people under treatment have suppressed the virus."
UNAIDS estimates around 72,000 people live with the virus in the Inca country. In addition, 2,800 people become infected every year and 1,600 die of AIDS.
Political commitment
In this respect, Stella highlighted Peruvian authorities' political commitment to prevent and address the infection, as well as the civil society's role in raising awareness about the major battle of HIV-infected people across the country's interior regions.
"Peru is one of the countries that has assumed the financing of antiretroviral therapy, and it has done so very seriously. And from a strategy design viewpoint, it is doing an excellent job," the UNAIDS director underlined.
"We have a nationwide treatment abandonment rate of around 13%, and that can go up to 50% in Amazon regions. These issues are not concealed, which also says a lot about the seriousness of its [Peru's] work," he concluded.
(END) KGR/RRC/DHT/RMB/MVB
Published: 7/21/2017