Countries have committed to nearly doubling the number of people who receive life-saving HIV treatment over the next five years as a high-level United Nations conference devoted to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 draws to a close.
The conference that ended yesterday also saw countries committing for the first time to monitoring the quality of treatment, with a goal getting 90 per cent of those receiving anti-retroviral medicine to reduce their viral load to the point where it is undetectable.
Sharonann Lynch, HIV and TB Policy adviser for Medecins Sans Frontiers, called that a "paradigm shift," because it puts the focus for the first time on quality rather than the just how many people are receiving treatment.
Currently, some 36.7 million people around the world are living with HIV.
