South Africa launches plan to treat HIV among sex workers

South Africa has launched Africa’s first plan to prevent and treat HIV among sex workers.

South Africa will soon begin providing HIV treatment to HIV-positive sex workers upon diagnosis as part of its new announced national plan. Currently, most people living with HIV must wait until their CD4 counts – a measure of the immune system’s strength – fall to 500 before they can start treatment.

The plan comes on the heels of research released that found about 72 percent of Johannesburg sex workers surveyed were living with HIV.