HIV transmission to KZN children down

Published Feb 21, 2012

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The rate of HIV transmission from mother to child in KwaZulu-Natal has dropped from 22 percent to 2.8 percent in the past four years, Premier Zweli Mkhize said on Tuesday.

“While KwaZulu-Natal has been known as the epicentre of the HIV and Aids pandemic, there are signs that the battle is being won, albeit slowly,” he said in his state of the province address in Pietermaritzburg.

The province was slowly winning the battle against the pandemic because of the work of the provincial council on HIV/Aids, he said.

The council includes government at all levels, civil society, labour, churches, the media and traditional leaders.

Mkhize said more than 500 000 HIV patients were on antiretroviral treatment in the province.

“We are also happy that the voluntary counselling and testing has seen more than two million people being tested.”

The number of people circumcised through the government’s programme was more than 100 000, he said.

However, the province was battling with the high rate of resistant tuberculosis. – Sapa

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