Maputo — The Mozambican government regards the HIV prevalence in the south of the country as "alarming", since the incidence of the virus is much higher than the national average of 16 per cent among Mozambicans aged between 15 and 49.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo said emergency measures are needed to reverse the spread of the virus in Maputo and Gaza provinces, and Maputo City. She announced that the government is drawing up an emergency plan to fight against HIV/AIDS in the southern provinces, which will be ready by the end of July.

The last epidemiological surveillance round, in 2007, showed that Gaza has the highest HIV infection rate in the country, at 27 per cent. Maputo province was not far behind on 26 per cent, and the figure for Maputo city was 23 per cent. The current projections are that in the short term these infection rates will rise to 35 per cent in Gaza, 34 per cent in Maputo province and 29 per cent in Maputo city.

"We believe that emergency intervention is necessary in the south, just as was done in the central region two years ago", said Diogo. The central provinces used to be the worst affected part of the country, but have now been overtaken by the south. Taken as a whole, the central region has a prevalence rate of 18 per cent, and the south 20 per cent. Diogo pointed out that this is "much higher than the national average".

The figures in the south would be much worse but for the fact that in one southern province, Inhambane, the situation is more or less under control. The current HIV prevalence rate in Inhambane is 12 per cent, which is not greatly changed from the 11.7 per cent found in 2004.

Diogo, who was speaking after a meeting of the Management Board of the National Aids Council (CNCS), which she chairs, lamented the failure of young people in the capital to act on the available information.

"In Maputo, the statistics show that the level of literacy is high, and access to information is high, which means that young people are well informed about this disease", she said. "So it's not a problem of lack of understanding or of information, it's a problem of attitude".

She pointed to the transport corridors that link Maputo to South Africa and Swaziland, and the thriving informal trade associated with these corridors, which attracts prostitution. There were also many cases of people with multiple sexual partners, engaged in unprotected sex, despite knowing of the dangers.

Minors continued to enter night clubs and similar places, and to consume alcohol, despite the law preventing this. The law passed several years ago by the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, barring minors from places of nocturnal entertainment has never been respected, and the owners of these places have always turned a blind to the presence of under-age girls on their premises.

"We feel that this law is not being complied with", admitted Diogo. "We have to control the situation, because it's a matter of defending the lives and future of our young people".

"These alarming situations have induced us to prepare the emergency plan for the southern region. It's urgent that we prepare to implement this rapidly, just as we did in the centre", she said.

"We must not reach the levels of prevalence of the neighbouring countries", Diogo stressed. "We have to do everything so that we do not reach the levels of South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana and Zimbabwe".

Diogo said that in the central provinces, after an emergency plan was implemented over two years, the situation is beginning to normalise, although the region still has prevalence levels high than the national average. The government would thus continue to implement the emergency plan in the centre, while maintaining the state of alert in the northern provinces, which have the lowest levels of HIV prevalence.

The CNCS Board also discussed the serious HIV/AIDS situation in the public sector. The latest estimate is that, of the 160,000 people working in the public administration (the majority of whom are in the education and health services), 19 per cent are HIV positive. 1,900 of these people are now receiving the life-prolonging anti-retroviral therapy.