The Mozambican government has announced that infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS in Mozambique will fall in 2023, reports Portuguese news agency Lusa.
Deaths from HIV/AIDs fell 8.3 percent to 44,000 deaths compared to 48,000 in 2022.
New HIV infections saw a greater reduction, dropping 16.5 percent from 97,000 new cases in 2022 to 81,000 last year. According to government statistics, one in 10 pregnant local women with HIV transmitted the virus to their children last year. Officials estimate the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the country at 2.4 million, roughly 7 percent of the population.
“There has been a year-on-year reduction in new infections, but it’s not enough to get the disease under control quickly,” said Francisco Mbofana, executive secretary of the National Council for the Fight Against Aids, at a press conference ahead of World AIDS Day on 1 December. “The number of new infections worries us a lot when we have the means to prevent them.”
[See more: Mozambique launches a US$1.2 million measles vaccination campaign]
Mbofana emphasised that many of the 44,000 deaths were “a result of not taking treatment and, if they are, not taking it correctly.” A government inquiry is being launched to better understand stigma around HIV/AIDS and to mobilise more people to test and start treatment for HIV. Early treatment of HIV can reduce both the likelihood of developing AIDS and of passing the virus to others.
Stigma and discrimination, Mbofana noted, “create many obstacles to our response to HIV, limiting access to prevention and treatment, limiting access to broader sexual and reproductive health services and also limiting access to treatment for tuberculosis, which is a common disease in people living with HIV.” Tuberculosis cases, which have been growing in Mozambique in recent years, totalled 119,000 in 2022
Last week, the Mozambican Civil Society Platform for Health cited illicit charges and insufficient health professionals and equipment as “barriers” to combating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in the country.
