Pretoria, Nov 23.- About 6.75 million people are now living with HIV in South Africa and from those who have undergone a viral load, more than 80 percent are suppressed.
Of the total number of patients, 3.3 million are receiving treatment, according to figures updated here on the presentation yesterday of the first national CD4 viral load monitoring panel, an initiative inserted in the continuous effort of the South African government against this scourge.
Health officials asserted that monitoring will help doctors and nurses closely keep watching the health of HIV / AIDS patients and provide warnings to reduce deaths caused by that illnesses associated with the epidemic.
The final goal is to reach the 90: 90: 90 Target set for 2020 by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS).
Such a challenge means that 90 percent of people infected with HIV are diagnosed, 90 percent are on treatment, and 90 percent have their suppressed viral load.
This initiative will be extended to the nine provinces of the country between January and March 2017.
About 15.8 million patients worldwide are under treatment, but there are still an unacceptably high numbers of new infections and AIDS-related deaths every year, according to figures from the international agencies released in June 2015.
In 2014, shortly more than two million people became infected with HIV and 1.2 million died of pathologies related to this disease.