Strong adherence to antiretroviral therapy suppresses viral load to undetectable levels within people living with HIV, greatly reducing the risk of transmitting the virus to others. When large proportions of people living with HIV within a community are on treatment, it has been shown to have a preventive effect within that community. Achievement of UNAIDS 90–90–90 treatment target by 2020 alongside high coverage of primary HIV prevention interventions can make the end of the AIDS epidemic a reality by 2030. The 90-90-90 treatment target means that 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV status are accessing treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads.
However, the global gap in achieving the 90-90-90 target in 2015 was around 11.9 million people living with HIV who did not know their HIV status, 12.7 million people in need of antiretroviral treatment and 13.0 million people living with HIV who were not virally suppressed.
