Authors: 

Justin T Okano, Andrea Low, Felix Ndagije, Luckson Dullie, Sally Blower

Abstract: 

UNAIDS has set targets to eliminate HIV by 2030: diagnose 95% of people living with HIV, treat 95% of diagnosed individuals, and attain viral suppression in 95% of treated individuals. Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa appear fairly close to achieving the treatment and viral suppression targets, but have been less successful in achieving the diagnosis target.Unless this last target is reached, the high treatment coverage and level of viral suppression needed for elimination will be impossible to obtain. Here, we discuss how to reach this last target by using a data-based mapping approach to find undiagnosed people living with HIV. Our proposed approach enables the identification of countrywide geographical variation in the proportion diagnosed, identifies the geographical location of undiagnosed people living with HIV, and estimates how many undiagnosed individuals live in these areas. We show the utility of our approach by applying it to Lesotho, a mountainous, landlocked country in South Africa (figure A), which had diagnosed 81% of people living with HIV, provided 92% of these individuals with treatment, and attained viral suppression in 88% of treated individuals by 2016–17.