calls for improved access to treatment and stronger focus on children
Staff Reporter
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Lesotho has called on the government to renew its political commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS, warning that gaps in treatment and care threaten progress towards controlling the epidemic.
In a statement issued on 19 October 2026, AHF Lesotho urged authorities to prioritise HIV/AIDS as a national and global health imperative by expanding access to prevention, testing and treatment services, improving retention in care and making Treatment as Prevention (TasP) central to efforts to control the epidemic.
The call comes as AHF marks its Global Month of Action on the faltering HIV/AIDS response worldwide, running from September to October 2026.
AHF’s analysis of UNAIDS 2025 data across countries where it operates found that, of nearly 33.9 million people living with HIV, more than 8.1 million were not virally suppressed.
The organisation said several countries, including Cambodia, Eswatini, Lesotho and Rwanda, had achieved levels of viral suppression needed to control their HIV epidemics. However, significant gaps remained in larger countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, India, China and the United States.
South Africa alone has nearly 1.75 million people living with HIV who have detectable levels of the virus, meaning they may still transmit it.
In Lesotho, the 2025 Lesotho National HIV Estimates Dissemination Report, based on 2024 data, highlights significant treatment gaps among children aged between zero and 14 years.
The report also points to declining viral suppression among children, underscoring the need to improve adherence to paediatric treatment, strengthen viral-load monitoring and ensure continuity of care.
It further identifies Quthing, Butha-Buthe and Mohale’s Hoek as districts with lower antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage than areas with higher coverage.
AHF Lesotho Acting Country Programme Manager Dr Patrick Kanyema said people living with HIV could lead long and healthy lives if they received effective treatment.
“People living with HIV can live long, healthy lives with effective treatment, and once virally suppressed, they cannot pass on the virus through sex [Treatment as Prevention]. But that only works if the medicines and services are in place and accessible without interruption,” Dr Kanyema said.
He said political commitment needed to be backed by concrete action to address the epidemic.
“History has shown that epidemics are shaped not only by medical interventions but also by political will backed by action. The fight against HIV/AIDS will ultimately be won or lost based on our ability to control new infections and close treatment gaps,” he said.
The Global Month of Action is part of a coordinated campaign involving AHF country programmes and partners in the 50 countries where the organisation operates.
AHF said governments, development partners, civil society, communities, the private sector and the pharmaceutical industry needed to act urgently to address the gaps in HIV prevention and treatment.
“The human cost of inaction is unacceptably high,” the organisation said, reiterating its campaign messages: “Silence = Death” and “Treatment = Life”.
AHF is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS healthcare organisation, providing medical services and advocacy to more than 3.3 million people across 50 countries in the United States, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Asia-Pacific region and Eastern Europe.
In January 2025, the organisation received the Martin Luther King Jr Social Justice Award, the King Center’s highest recognition for organisations working in the social justice arena.
