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Today South Africa, along with the rest of the world marks AIDS World Day, which the United Nations has sat down to show support for people living with HIV/AIDS and to those who have lost their loved ones to the disease. The theme for this year is: ‘End Inequalities. End AIDS’ to draw attention to vulnerable sections of the population that have been left behind by advances used to combat the disease, especially inequitable access to life-saving AIDS drugs and AIDS education. In 2013, the United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) introduced the 90-90-90 guidelines to eliminate the scourge by 2020.

The Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) has shown that the profile of people that have been left behind by advance in AIDS management is dominated by teenage girls and young women. According to CAPRISA, although AIDS treatment services are available in the community health centres in which these groups live, poverty and other social hardships force them to weigh up the benefits of using them. Factors such as partner trust, hunger and the social and monetary values of such relationships - especially with men much older than themselves, commonly known as sugar daddies – more often than not, win the day.

South Africa has committed herself to achieving the UNAIDS’s 90–90–90 Fast-Track targets by 2020. The narrative of the strategy refers to striving to ensure that 90% of people living with HIV are tested and know their status, that 90% of people living with HIV are receiving treatment, and 90% of people on treatment have a suppressed viral load. Data from the University of Cape Town’s Thembisa AIDS Research Model show that South Africa had reached a 90–68–88 outcome by 2018. However, most reviews show that the transmission of the HIV virus which causes AIDS remains prevalent in the country.

Issued by FEDUSA