Durban — There are promising signs that the government's HIV prevention efforts are beginning to bear fruit among young women, according to its latest antenatal clinic survey.

HIV prevalence dropped from 15,9% to 13,7% among pregnant women under the age of 20, and fell from 30,6% to 28% among women aged between 20 and 24 over the same period.

"It's great news for us," said health department spokesman Sibane Mngadi.

"We believe it is because of the prevention initiatives we have implemented among the young. We need to sustain and scale up these programmes," he said.

However, the report noted that there were no signs of such gains among older women.

Every year since 1990, officials have published data on the levels of HIV and syphilis among pregnant women attending government clinics.

The reports are a key measure of the government's progress in combating the disease, which affects more than 5,5-million South Africans.

The latest survey, a summary of which was published on the health department's website yesterday afternoon to coincide with the health minister delivering her budget speech in Parliament, shows 29,1 % of pregnant women were infected with HIV last year, down from 30,2% in 2005.

However, the fairly wide margin of error in the two years overlaps, ranging from 29,1% to 31,2% in 2005 and between 28,1% and 31,2%, so experts do not consider th e drop to be statistically significant. The true prevalence figure could lie anywhere within the error margin, said David Bourne, a statistician at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

He said that the overall prevalence among pregnant women was becoming increasingly difficult to interpret, as there was a complex interplay between the rate of new infections, the death rate, and the growth in the number of people living with HIV who were on treatment.

The drop in HIV prevalence among young women was very encouraging, he said. There were also signs that the government's free AIDS drug programme was slowing the death rates among young women, he said, citing new research presented by his colleagues at the third South African National AIDS conference earlier this week.

The study, which was conducted by scientists from the Medical Research Council and UCT, showed that the soaring death rates of the late 1990s and early 2000s had begun to slow down since 2003, particularly among young women.

The scientists analysed death certificates collected by the home affairs department between 1998 and last year.

"The death rates are still far too high, but it's encouraging to see that making treatment available is starting to show an effect," Medical Research Council researcher Debbie Bradshaw told conference delegates.