Government ministers sit shoulder-to-shoulder with representatives from Unicef and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a jam-packed conferencing venue in Pretoria. Journalists, with pens, Dictaphones and cameras poised, record every spoken word. The topic under discussion: the most recent assessment of the HIV pandemic in South Africa, and the socio-demographic and behavioural factors that affect the country’s HIV prevalence (the proportion of people living with HIV) and incidence (new HIV infections in a given year).
On Tuesday 1 April 2014, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) released the results of its fourth National HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey – an important study that the Flow PR team was proud to assist in promoting and publicising.
The survey, which interviewed over 38 000 people, and tested some 29 000 of these for HIV, found that an estimated 6.4-million people were living with HIV/Aids in South Africa in 2012. This is an increase in the estimated overall prevalence of HIV from 10.6% in 2008 to 12.2% in 2012, a result both of new infections and a successfully expanded antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme. The availability and use of ART has increased survival among people with HIV, and by mid-2012 more than two million people were on ART.
“South Africa is currently implementing the largest antiretroviral treatment programme in the world,” said Professor Thomas Rehle, director and senior programme advisor in the HSRC’s HIV/Aids, STIs and TB programme, and a principal investigator of the study. “Unfortunately, with over 400 000 new HIV infections occurring in 2012, South Africa also ranks first in HIV incidence in the world.”
The HIV incidence rates among women are a particular source of concern, with the incidence rate among women aged 15 to 24 years coming in four times higher than for men in this age group (2.5% vs 0.6%). At 4.5%, black African women between the ages of 20 and 34 had the highest incidence of HIV among the analysed population groups.
Compared with the 2008 data, there was a decline in condom use in all age groups, except for the 50 years and older group. An increase in multiple sexual partnerships among sexually active people over the age of 15 was also identified.
“The disproportionately high HIV prevalence levels among females in the country, and high HIV prevalence in unmarried cohabiting people, require a rethinking of conventional approaches of HIV prevention towards strategies that address the underlying socio-cultural norms in the affected communities,” said principal investigator and HSRC CEO Professor Olive Shisana.
While the country is on track when it comes to the provision of ART, national HIV testing and counselling, and greater awareness of mother-to-child transmission, the survey suggests that other biomedical, behavioural, social and structural prevention interventions are needed to reduce the high rate of new HIV infections.
