Nearly 21 Million Now Receiving AIDS Drugs, U.N. Agency Says<br />test; 90 percent of those who test positive having been prescribed drugs;<br />and 90 percent of those prescribed drugs staying on them faithfully enough to have undetectable levels of the virus in their blood.<br />Only four countries in Africa — where the epidemic has hit hardest — are getting drugs to<br />even 75 percent of their citizens needing them: Botswana, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.<br />Global Health By<br />DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.<br />NOV. 20, 2017<br />Almost 21 million people around the world are now getting life-prolonging AIDS drugs, according to a report issued on Monday.<br />But that means that only 44 percent of the world’s H.I.V.-infected people are virally suppressed —<br />that is, that they are taking medication consistently enough to provide a nearly normal life span.<br />The number of "AIDS orphans" — children and teenagers whose parents have died — peaked at 20 million in 2009.<br />That happened only after generic drugs became available<br />and donor organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria were created to pay for them.
