Online Reporter
Mozambique has the third-highest number of people infected with HIV in the world, and the second-highest number of new Aids infections, with “teenage girls and young women” the worst affected, according to a report released on Tuesday in parliament.
South Africa has the highest number of people with HIV in the world with about 7,7 million people infected followed by India with 2,5 million people, while Mozambique stands in third place with 2,3 million infected persons.
“Mozambique ranks third in terms of the number of people living with HIV in the world and second in terms of the number of new infections,” reads the annual report of the parliament’s HIV/Aids Prevention Office, presented yesterday at the 1st Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Republic, in Maputo.
According to the document, Mozambique has an estimated 2,3 to 2,6 million people living with HIV, including 125 000 to 170 000 children, with a prevalence of the disease of 12,5 percent in people over 15 years of age, “being higher in women (15 percent) than in men (9,5 percent) in the same age group”.
Among the most vulnerable groups affected by the disease in the country are “adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24”, with around 2 000 new infections recorded in 2023, a rate around three times higher than the number of new infections in boys and young men of the same age, it is further explained.
“Women face a disproportionate burden of HIV throughout the life cycle, with the disparity being even more pronounced among young women, aged 20 to 24, whose HIV prevalence is 3,1 times higher than that of their male counterparts (11,8 percent versus 3,8 percent),” the report adds.
Groups vulnerable to the virus in the country include, among others, mobile and migrant workers (including mine workers, with 22,3 percent prevalence, and long-distance truck drivers, with 15,4 percent).
“Although the country has made progress in recent years, challenges remain in controlling the HIV epidemic, which shows the need for joint, concerted efforts and the involvement of all stakeholders to improve the performance of the national response,” the document adds.
AIM
