  The United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has set a target to
ensure that 15 million HIV-positive people in the world would be receiving
combination anti-retroviral treatment (ART) by 2015. This target is likely to
be reached and new targets for 2020 and 2030 are needed. Eastern and Southern
Africa (ESA) account for approximately half of all people living with HIV in
the world and it will be especially important to set reachable and affordable
targets for this region. In order to make future projections of HIV and TB
prevalence, incidence and mortality assuming different levels of ART scale-up
and coverage, it is first necessary to assess the current state of the
epidemic. Here we review national data on the prevalence of HIV, the coverage
of ART and the notification rates of TB to provide a firm basis for making
future projections. We use the data to assess the extent to which behaviour
change and ART have reduced the number of people living with HIV who remain
infectious.
