Which other cities have aimed for these targets, and how are they doing?
On the heels of World AIDS Day, New Yorkers have good HIV news to celebrate. The city announced it reached the 90-90-90 HIV targets set by the United Nations’ AIDS group, making it the first U.S. city participating in the “Fast-Track Cities” initiative to do so. What’s more, it reached the goals two years ahead of schedule.
The 90-90-90 targets are:
90% of people living with HIV know their status
90% of people diagnosed with HIV are on treatment
90% of people on treatment are virally suppressed.
As of 2018, New York City statistics show that 93% of New Yorkers with HIV have been diagnosed, 90% of diagnosed people are on treatment and 92% of New Yorkers on meds are virally suppressed, according to a press release from the city of New York.
As the Praekelt Foundation prepares for next week’s AIDS conference in Durban, I reached out to my friends from NGOs around the world. Having recently joined the comms team, I was hoping this would serve as an opportunity to connect like minded development people together, especially since HIV has been the central focus of most of my work in India and Nigeria since 2005.
Instead the responses I received were indifferent. One friend at an agriculture focused NGO said “We are hardly working in AIDS relief anymore.” Another wrote: “HIV is no longer in vogue! I don’t even think about it anymore. I used to be obsessed with it.”
I was surprised to see such a lack of interest in what continues to remain a large global health issue impacting millions. HIV today is the largest killer amongst adolescents in Africa, and the second largest worldwide. What happened to what was once the darling cause of the development sector?
For one, issues such as climate change and refugees have taken center stage in the media. Constantly debated, filmed, and discussed these crisis are on the front of newspapers and people’s minds. Within the cluttered media environment of ISIS, Syria, Zika, and Brexit, the lingering pandemic can’t always compete. There have also been huge strides in antiretroviral treatments and medical advances in the field which have enabled many people who are HIV positive to live longer and healthier lives. Yet, the conference next week will mark the 21st annual meeting on the subject, and there will still be over 20,000 participants. People still care and understand the importance of the issue.
When I was working on HIV, we spent a lot of time on creating work that was then handed off to other sectors. What I appreciate about Praekelt Foundation’s approach to health issues is their integrated, inclusive model. We believe all social issues, including HIV and AIDS, need to be contextualized, rather than approached as isolated issues. HIV is directly linked to sexual health, which is in turn connected education and literacy which is also directly affected by children and girls’ rights which undoubtedly has roots in poverty and access to resources. If we separate any of these facets, we do a disservice to all of them.
This philosophy will be the only way to achieve the 90-90-90 goals set out by the UN’s program on HIV/ AIDS in 2013. The strategy focuses on diagnosing affected people,offering antiretroviral treatment for people who are diagnosed, and having those who receive treatment be virally suppressed. The challenges will continue to be around access and availability of services and information, which is where mobile technology can be a game changer.
As communities become connected through the web and mobile data, issues will become harder and harder to isolate. This is a good thing as social change organizations can then mirror the reality of complex factors: problems don’t occur in silos. Then maybe every issue will continue to be addressed, even when they stop being trendy.
IAS 2015 Pre-Conference Workshop
UN 90-90-90 Target Workshop: Lessons from the Field
In follow up to the successful launch of the new UN 90-90-90 Target for HIV treatment last year at UNGASS, a strong global consensus has emerged in its support as a key step towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030
