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The HIV policy which was launched in 35 countries has since played a pivotal role in reducing the high deaths of TB and Cryptococcal meningitis.
This came out at the just-ended International Conference on Aids and STIs in Africa event that was held in Harare last week.
According to Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, ending Aids is not a mystery but a policy choice.
“The path that ends AIDS is not a mystery- it is a policy choice,” she said during the ongoing International Conference of Aids and STI in Africa which is underway in Harare.
Cryptococcal meningitis (CM)is the second largest killer of people living with HIV (PLHIV) and is one of the most painful ways to die. It was responsible for an estimated 19 percent of AIDS-related mortality and 112,000 deaths among PLHIV in 2021.
It is therefore caused by Cryptococcus fungi, a fungus ubiquitous in nature. CM attacks people with suppressed immune systems.
CM remains underrecognized, undercounted, under-diagnosed and under-treated and has failed to receive the programmatic and political commitments that are needed at the national and global levels to reduce its deadly toll.
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