UNICEF: Strides made in Namibia against HIV/AIDS

Towards Universal Access, a new report on scaling up HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts, highlights gains in HIV testing and counselling, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and other areas. Here is a related story.

OHANGWENA DISTRICT, Namibia, 30 September 2009 More than 4 million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy at the close of 2008 a 36 per cent increase in one year and a 10-fold increase over five years, according to a new report released today by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, also known as UNAIDS.

The report, Towards Universal Access: Scaling Up Priority HIV/AIDS Interventions in the Health Sector, puts the success down to expanded HIV testing and counseling, as well as improved access to services aimed at prevention of mother-to-child transmission, or PMTCT.

Namibia, with one of the worlds highest rates of HIV infection, is at the forefront of this change. In 2006, Namibia could afford ARV treatment for only a few hundred people. Last year, it treated tens of thousands almost 70 percent of those in need.

To read the full story, visit http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/namibia_51251.html

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• UNICEF
• Namibia
• AIDS
• HIV
• HIV/AIDS
• UNAIDS
• ARV