Nations in Western and Southern Europe are marching toward meeting ambitious targets set by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for the diagnosis, treatment and viral suppression of HIV, aidsmap reports.

UNAIDS has called on nations worldwide to get 90 percent of their HIV populations diagnosed, 90 percent of those diagnosed on antiretrovirals and 90 percent of those on ARVs virally suppressed by 2020. This is known as the 90-90-90 target and means that 73 percent of a nation’s HIV population would have a fully suppressed virus and therefore have an extremely small risk of transmitting the virus; the risk may in fact be zero.

Publishing their findings in Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers looked at data on HIV diagnosis, treatment and viral suppression pertaining to the end of 2013 from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and European national cohorts and surveillance agencies. They examined data on 11 countries from the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

An estimated 674,500 people were living with HIV in the eleven nations, or 0.22 percent of the overall population. An estimated 84 percent of these individuals were diagnosed, 84 percent of those diagnosed were on ARVs and 85 percent of those on ARVs were virally suppressed.

National HIV diagnosis rates ranged from 78 percent in Greece to 91 percent in Denmark. Italy and Sweden also reached the 90 percent target.

As for those diagnosed with HIV in each nation, the proportion who had been prescribed ARVs ranged from 76 percent in Spain to 96 percent in Belgium. Other countries that hit the 90 percent target included Austria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.

At least 81 percent of each nation’s population on ARV treatment had achieved viral suppression; Denmark and Sweden reached the related 90 percent target.

The overall rate of viral suppression among each nation’s HIV population ranged from a low of 52 percent in Greece and 54 percent in the United Kingdom to 72 percent in Sweden and 80 percent in Denmark.

To read the aidsmap article, click here.

To read the study abstract, click here.