International Business Times: WHO’s 2020 HIV Target May Fall Short Due To Flaws In Lab Services
“…The WHO hopes that by 2020, 90 percent of people living with HIV would know of their HIV status, 90 percent of those diagnosed would be receiving the antiretroviral therapy and 90 percent of those who had received treatment would achieve durable viral load suppression (a method to ensure that the viral load is undetectable). Laboratory testing is crucial to achieve this target. However, in a paper published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers found that several labs around the world are incapable of performing the necessary tests either due to lack of reagents, equipment not installed or maintained properly, and poor or a lack of staff training. In some labs, machines remained broken as they weren’t covered by contracts to be serviced or fixed. This could result in the WHO missing its target…” (Pascaline, 8/24).