Botswana is close to achieving the targets set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for diagnosis, treatment and viral suppression among national populations of people living with HIV, aidsmap reports. Researchers conducted a random population-based survey in Botswana between October 2013 and July 2015, including 12,610 people. Results were presented at the 2016 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston.

WHO has set goals for countries to achieve the following targets by 2020: diagnose 90 percent of the national HIV population; start HIV treatment in 90 percent of the diagnosed individuals; and ensure that 90 percent of those on treatment are virally suppressed. Achieving these targets would mean that 73 percent of each nation’s HIV population would have a fully suppressed viral load and would thus have a vastly reduced likelihood of transmitting the virus.

By comparison, the United States is estimated to have a viral suppression rate of only about 30 percent, a figure that is dismal compared with other Western nations—and, as it turns out, even Botswana. However, the U.S. estimate is now five years old and could have been an underestimate in the first place. Furthermore, evidence presented at CROI suggests that viral suppression rates have been steadily increasing in the United States. So the current rate of viral suppression in the United States could be considerably higher.

Twenty-nine percent of this new study’s participants were HIV positive. Eighty-three percent of these individuals were aware they had HIV. Of those who already knew they were HIV positive, 87 percent were on treatment for the virus, and 96 percent of the treated individuals were virally suppressed. In other words, Botswana had achieved an impressive target of “83-87-96” among this sample.

The factor most strongly associated with having undiagnosed HIV was being younger.

To read the aidsmap article, click here.

To read the conference abstract, click here.

To view a webcast of the conference presentation, click here.