Maputo, 4 Dec (AIM) – Mozambique recorded at least 48,000 deaths caused by HIV/AIDS in 2022, according to data unveiled by the National AIDS Council.
According to the Executive Secretary of the Council, Francisco Mbofana, who was speaking on Friday, in Maputo, at the ceremony marking World AIDS Day, which took place under the motto “Community and Civil Society in the Vanguard of the Response to HIV/AIDS” a further 97,000 people were infected with HIV.
Last year, according to Mbofana, 2.4 million people in Mozambique were living with the disease.
“The country has an HIV prevalence rate of 12.5 per cent”, he said, adding that the southern provinces of Maputo and Gaza, and the central province of Zambézia have the highest number of cases of the disease.
For his part, Health Minister Armindo Tiago said that around two million HIV positive people are undergoing antiretroviral treatment for a disease that particularly affects women between 15 and 49 years old.
“In 2022, 2.4 million Mozambicans were living with HIV-AIDS and, of these, 98 per cent are adults. Also last year, we registered 97,000 new infections and 48,000 deaths”, he detailed.
Of the total number of people infected in Mozambique, by September, 2023, at least 88 per cent knew their status, compared to 36 per cent in the same period in 2010, he added.
Due to the provision of antiretroviral treatment, the Minister said, the country has managed to prevent the deaths of around one million people, and vertical transmission of the disease from their mothers to 330,000 children.
Tiago also explained that the numbers resulted from the expansion of antiretroviral treatment services in 96 per cent of health units in Mozambique, in addition to the work carried out by communities, civil society and health professionals.
(AIM)
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