A new Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) study has found that more than 70,000 young people in Gauteng living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are not receiving any treatment.
This comes after the HSRC unveiled the key provincial findings of the Sixth South African National HIV, Prevalence, Incidence, and Behaviour Survey (SABSSM VI) for Gauteng.
The provincial results announcement took place at the Hotel Parktonian in Braamfontein, on August 29.
Professor Khangalani Zuma from the HSRC, said the prevalence of HIV in the province remained statistically unchanged, as people who were not HIV-negative in 2017 were found to be positive in 2022.
Zuma said the HIV prevalence went down to 11.9% in 2022 from 12.1% in 2017.
“The HIV prevalence was 12.1% in 2017 translating to 1.78 million people living with HIV, and it mathematically went down by 11.9% in 2022. There is a change, but it is not statistically significant,” he told the crowd.
Zuma said 1.72 million people were living with HIV in 2022, citing that the HIV prevalence in Gauteng did not change significantly.
He added that women are at high risk of being infected with HIV compared to men.
“The HIV prevalence was slightly higher in rural areas amongst those in formal-rural areas, then followed by those in urban areas, and the least among those was in tribal areas,” he said.
Zuma said while the study was not conducted in all districts across the province, however, Johannesburg and Sedibeng have high rates of HIV prevalence compared to other districts.
“The Sedibeng district is at 13.2%, then followed by City of Johannesburg with 12.9%.”
In addition, he said the province has seen an increase in the number of people receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) compared to 2017.
“In 2017, there was an increase of 56.0% up to 73.4% in 2022.”
Zuma said over 75,000 young people, under the age of 25 years are living with HIV in the province, but are not receiving treatment.
“The number includes our young children who are in school, and most likely, a number of them do not even know their HIV status.”
Zuma said there is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to address the issue of children who are living with HIV, but not receiving treatment.
He said the study has been a major source of information for assessing the progress of the implementation of the South African National Strategic Plan for HIV, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.
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