“Four decades ago, when HIV was first identified, it was an invariably fatal disease: nearly 100% of those infected died, typically within a few years.

The virus spread rapidly around the world — especially in Africa, where almost two million were dying every year by the millennium.

Thankfully, medical advances and global public health efforts have entirely changed this course. Modern antiretroviral therapy is very effective in both treating HIV — returning people with HIV to near-normal life expectancy — and preventing the virus from spreading to others.

The chart above shows this impact based on data from UNAIDS. Over a million people’s lives are now saved by antiretroviral therapy each year.”

From Our World in Data.