Advancing the 95-95-95 Targets: A Roadmap to End AIDS by 2030

By Rene Pretorius

December 11, 2024

The UNAIDS document, Progress towards the 95–95–95 HIV Testing, Treatment, and Viral Suppression Targets, outlines a critical framework in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. The 95-95-95 HIV targets emphasize aggressive goals for testing, treatment, and viral load suppression to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

What Are the 95-95-95 HIV Targets?

Adopted in June 2021 by UN Member States, the 95-95-95 HIV targets build on the earlier 90-90-90 framework. They aim to accelerate progress in testing, treatment, and viral suppression worldwide. These targets are part of the UNAIDS Fast-Track strategy, ensuring access to HIV services for all age groups, demographics, and regions.

The Three Pillars of the Targets

  1. First 95: 95% of people living with HIV must know their status.
    • Numerator: People diagnosed with HIV.
    • Denominator: All people living with HIV.
  2. Second 95: 95% of those diagnosed must receive treatment.
    • Numerator: People on HIV treatment.
    • Denominator: People who know their status.
  3. Third 95: 95% of treated individuals must achieve viral suppression.
    • Numerator: People with suppressed viral loads.
    • Denominator: People on treatment.

Addressing the Healthcare Cascade

The 95-95-95 HIV targets directly tackle the healthcare cascade challenges that often undermine disease management and elimination efforts. These challenges arise at multiple stages, including diagnosis, treatment initiation, adherence, and achieving desired health outcomes.

Bridging Gaps in Diagnosis and Treatment

The healthcare cascade often starts with undiagnosed individuals who unknowingly live with the disease. The HIV targets aim to eliminate this barrier by emphasizing robust testing strategies. By ensuring that 95% of people living with HIV know their status, programs can capture more patients at the entry point.

Ensuring Treatment Retention

Many healthcare cascades see significant dropout after diagnosis, as individuals fail to start or stay on treatment. The HIV targets address this by focusing on treatment uptake, with 95% of those diagnosed receiving antiretroviral therapy. Retention programs and patient-centered care models are critical to meeting this goal.

Achieving Viral Suppression

The final stage of the cascade is often marked by suboptimal treatment adherence and incomplete viral suppression. The HIV targets emphasize achieving suppressed viral loads in 95% of those on treatment. This focus not only improves individual health outcomes but also reduces community-level transmission risks, driving towards elimination.

Why the 95-95-95 HIV Targets Matter

Driving Program Success

The HIV targets provide a clear way to measure program effectiveness. They pinpoint barriers in testing, care linkage, treatment retention, and viral suppression. Identifying these gaps ensures resources are directed where they are most needed.

Reducing Disparities

These targets promote equity in HIV services. They ensure access across sub-populations, age groups, and regions, reducing disparities and closing treatment gaps.

Supporting Global and Regional Tracking

The HIV targets create a unified framework to track progress at global and regional levels. Countries can compare achievements, share insights, and focus efforts on lagging areas.

Improving Health and Economics

Meeting these targets will save lives and reduce healthcare costs. Suppressing HIV through effective treatment lowers new infections and AIDS-related deaths. Using affordable generic medications amplifies these benefits.

Sustaining the HIV Response

The HIV targets integrate HIV care into broader health systems. This approach strengthens health infrastructure and ensures long-term success in combating the epidemic.

A Path to Ending HIV/AIDS

The 95-95-95 HIV targets are more than metrics. They are a roadmap to a future free from HIV/AIDS stigma, inequities, and health disparities. By achieving these goals, we can make the vision of ending AIDS by 2030 a reality.

Reference url

Recent Posts

oral health Africa
    

Oral Health in Africa: Promoting Collaborative Solutions

🦷 Is oral health taking a back seat in public health discussions in Africa?

A new article reveals alarming statistics about the high prevalence of untreated dental diseases across the continent and a critical shortage of oral health professionals. It emphasizes the urgent need for collaborative action among healthcare providers and policy-makers to integrate oral health into broader public health frameworks.

Discover how strengthening partnerships can pave the way for improved health outcomes and resource allocation in oral health.

#SyenzaNews #globalhealth #HealthEconomics

tislelizumab NSCLC treatment
        

Early Benefit Assessment of Tislelizumab NSCLC Treatment: Insights and Implications

🧐 How is the evolving treatment landscape for NSCLC affecting patient access to tislelizumab?

The German Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has launched an early benefit assessment for tislelizumab as a second-line treatment for adults with advanced NSCLC. This assessment notably focuses on PD-L1 negative patients and highlights the need for additional data to substantiate its value amidst a shifting emphasis on first-line immunotherapy.

Explore the nuances of this assessment and its implications for future research and market access in the full article.

#SyenzaNews #oncology #MarketAccess

colorectal cancer screening
    

Advances in Colorectal Cancer Screening: Access and Cost

🚀 Is blood-based screening redefining colorectal cancer detection?

The Shield blood test offers a non-invasive alternative to colonoscopy—boosting screening uptake, but raising questions around effectiveness and value.

🔍 Discover how this innovation could reshape patient care, payer strategy, and health system costs.

#SyenzaNews #HealthcareInnovation #CostEffectiveness #DigitalTransformation

When you partner with Syenza, it’s like a Nuclear Fusion.

Our expertise are combined with yours, and we contribute clinical expertise and advanced degrees in health policy, health economics, systems analysis, public finance, business, and project management. You’ll also feel our high-impact global and local perspectives with cultural intelligence.

SPEAK WITH US

CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS

1950 W. Corporate Way, Suite 95478
Anaheim, CA 92801, USA

© 2025 Syenza™. All rights reserved.