THE National AIDS Council (NAC) says Zambia has registered a decline in the prevalence of new infections of HIV in children aged 0-14 years.
NAC donor co-ordinator and public relations manager Justine Mwiinga said in a press statement released on Wednesday this is a good indicator.
Mr Mwiinga said the government has prioritised prevention of new infections as a major component of the multi-sectoral response to HIV and AIDS between 2011 and 2015.
“Prevention interventions will focus on behaviour change, addressing structural barriers and accelerating biomedical interventions,” he said.
He said despite still suffering a heavy burden of the HIV epidemic, Zambia has begun to achieve positive gains in its control efforts.
“These successes include positive trends in five key indicators. The age of sexual debut for both young men and women has risen, condom use at perceived higher risk sex has increased and basic knowledge of HIV and AIDS has gone up,” he said.
Mr Mwiinga said 66.8 percent of people in need of treatment are receiving services while 61 percent of pregnant women access prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services.
He said according to the National AIDS Strategic Framework for 2011-2015, in 2009, an estimated 82,681 adults were newly infected with HIV with new adult infections occurring each day.
[Zambia Daily Mail]
but if ther are new infections occurring in adults every day,then the reduction is temporal.Sex partners should know their HIVstatus to avoid infecting the innocent children at whatever level..The future of the nation depends on the health young people..YOUTHHHHHHHHH
What was the prevalence(over which period) and what is it now so that we really tell whether there is a decline or not. I don’t think this decline(in 0-14 yr) is real beacuse the HIV infection rate in adult is still high.i.e Mother to child transimission is dependant on adult HIV prevalence.What might caused this decline, if it is true,is that some of the children in this group moved into the 15-45 category and not prevention efforts.