Estimates for 2022 indicate that at least 48,000 people die annually in Mozambique from HIV/AIDS and another 97,000 are infected, Mozambique’s health minister said this Friday.
“The numbers we announce here are not just statistics, they reflect the pain, the suffering, but above all the loss of our fellow citizens,” Armindo Thiago said during a ceremony to mark World AIDS Day.
Armindo Tiago also said that there are 2.4 million people living with the human immunodeficiency virus in the country, 94% of whom are over 15 years of age, and the rate of vertical transmission is 10%.
Of the total number of people infected in Mozambique until September this year, at least 88% knew their status, up from 36% in the same period in 2010, he said.
According to the Ministry of Health, about two million people with HIV/AIDS are receiving antiretroviral treatment, a disease that predominantly affects women aged 15 to 29 years.
“Mozambique’s AIDS program has the second largest number of people treated in the world. We should celebrate this, but we must consider that this is hard work that can be avoided and so our fight is to ensure that we do not increase these numbers further in the future. “, said Armindo Thiago.
Mozambique’s Minister of Health also said that thanks to the availability of antiretroviral treatment over the past 22 years, the country has avoided the death of about a million people and the vertical transmission of the disease in 330 thousand children.
According to Armindo Tiago, these figures are the result of the expansion of antiretroviral treatment services in 96% of the country’s health facilities, as well as work carried out by communities, civil society and health workers, among others.
“Without the responsibility of each of us, these results would not have been achieved. Thus, health is the responsibility of individuals, but above all of communities,” Thiago said.
Mozambique celebrates World AIDS Day with the theme “Community and civil society at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS”, with the Minister of Health keen to realize the dream of normalizing the disease.
“Our dream is to make HIV a normal disease. When one of us has malaria, we publicly say that we have malaria, but for HIV we get tested and hide. Let’s normalize HIV and [isso] it all starts with us,” said Armindo Thiago.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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