Cambodia is the first country in Asia to meet the U.N. targets for controlling HIV. Above: A vendor in Phnom Penh sits by a banner marking World AIDS Day.

Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images

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Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images

Only 11 countries in the world can say this:

Ninety-five percent of people living there, who are HIV positive, know their status.

Ninety-five percent of HIV-positive people are taking medication that lowers the amount of the virus in their body.

And 95% of people on HIV medication have a viral load so low, they’re considered virally suppressed. This means they have an almost zero risk of passing HIV on to their partners.

In June, Cambodia became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to reach this milestone, which the U.N. has set as a goal for every country to achieve by the year 2030. The 95-95-95 targets were called ambitious and daunting when UNAIDS set them in 2020.

But since then, 11 nations, most of which are in Africa, have achieved them. Denmark is the one European nation on the list.

Many Asian countries — including wealthy ones like Japan and South Korea –- have struggled to make these gains, says Dr. Annette Sohn, director of amfAR’s TREAT Asia program, a network of clinics and researchers serving people with HIV.

“Sometimes people will think —– why is it that we are not able to manage HIV control?” Sohn says. “The number one challenge continues to be stigma.”

That stigma might be a feeling of shame that keeps a person from getting tested for HIV or from visiting a clinic for treatment.

People living with HIV also face discrimination, which can make navigating the healthcare system a struggle.

Sohn says this is how Cambodia succeeded: Advocates recognized that people seek healthcare where they feel accepted and used this strategy to save lives.

“I moved to the countryside … to die”

Sophal Seum is an advocate for people living with HIV. When he himself was infected in 2000, he lost his job after then mandatory testing revealed his status. Today, he is on medication to control the virus. “I can survive,” he says, “because I have hope.”
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At the peak of the AIDS crisis, as many as 15,000 people in Cambodia were dying each year from a virus that had no cure and no vaccine. Before 1998, there was no medication to prevent HIV from destroying a patient’s immune system, leaving them vulnerable to infections and rare cancers.

“We heard it was a strange, deadly virus,” recalls Sophal Seum. “People were scared of HIV.”

The virus tore through brothels and nightclubs but quickly reached the general public. By 1999, about 2% of adults between the ages of 15 and 49 had contracted HIV. At the time, Seum was a young hotel worker near Angkor Wat; an ancient Hindu temple that attracts millions of visitors each year. He says he lost his job after testing positive for HIV in 2000, and struggled to find a new one. Many jobs at the time required blood tests, he says. The practice was banned in 2002.