Maputo — Currently about 1.7 million HIV-positive Mozambicans are undergoing treatment with the life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVT), according to Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane, speaking on Wednesday at the opening session of a meeting of the Steering Council of the National AIDS Commission (CNCS).

An estimated 2.1 million people are infected with HIV in Mozambique, and so the number on ARVT represents coverage of 81 per cent. This is an increase of 21 per cent, when compared with 2020 when 1.4 million HIV-positive Mozambicans were undergoing treatment.

"We note with some satisfaction that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, our country has managed to achieve encouraging results in preventing and treating HIV", said Maleiane.

He noted that in 2021 96 per cent of the country's 1,771 health units were providing counselling, testing and treatment for HIV, which was "a major effort by our government to bring HIV services closer to the public".

In 2021, the Mozambican health authorities held the National Survey on the Impact of HIV and AIDS (INSIDA). This survey updates information on HIV prevalence rates, and how much the public knows about the disease, and assesses the impact of the government's interventions.

Maleiane said the final results of INSIDA-2021 will be published in December. "With this information we shall be better able to align our strategies to end HIV as a public health threat by 2030, a commitment that we have given as a country", he added.

For his part, the CNCS Executive Secretary, Francisco Mbofana, said that the institution spent about 60 million US dollars in 2019, in actions to fight against HIV and AIDS. "Right now, the most recent data we have are for 2019", he admitted, "We are going to make the calculations for the following years".

He added that the CNCS estimates for new HIV infections are that there were 98,000 cases in 2020, and 94,000 the following year.