A new report from the World Health Organization – WHO has revealed a global rise in HIV, viral hepatitis epidemics, and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), with Americas and African regions having the highest increase.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said this increase poses a threat to WHO Member States’ ambitious target set in 2022 of reducing the annual number of new adult HIV infections by ten-fold by 2030, from 7.1 million to 0.71 million globally.
Dr Tedros further said HIV and STIs continue to pose significant public health challenges, causing 2.5 million deaths each year.
He however pointed out that efforts by countries to bring services tackling STIs, HIV and hepatitis are bringing formidable gains in eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis among pregnant women.
There are over 1 million people who are living with HIV in Malawi and about 600,000 deaths have been averted since the onset of the ART Programme in 2003, according to National AIDS Commission (NAC) records.
Local studies in the country have shown varying prevalence of 1.53 -17% in viral hepatitis B (HBV) with a pooled prevalence of 8.1%.
By Alufisha Fischer