Pretoria - The prevalence of HIV among people in South Africa has risen to 13.1 percent, according to figures released by South Africa's Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke on Monday.
"People living with HIV in 2018 are estimated to be sitting at 7.52 million persons. Of course we are looking at people in South Africa living a lot more healthier. With the proliferation and availability of ARVs, there are more people [with HIV] living so it's not a question of the numbers just increasing," said Maluleke in Pretoria.
"Certainly, we still have new infections, but the fact is that the people are living a lot more longer with ARVs. Over time, HIV prevalence among adults aged 15 to 49 is increasing while declining among youth 15 to 24 [years]."
The number of AIDS related deaths has been on a consistent decline from 276 921 in 2007 to 115 167 in 2018.
The total number of people living with HIV in South Africa has however increased from an estimated 4.25 million in 2002 to the 7.52 million by 2018. For 2018, approximately one-fifth of women in South Africa in their reproductive ages [15 to 49] are HIV positive, according to StatsSA.
Earlier, Maluleke revealed that South Africa's population has risen to 57.7 million.
"We are talking about mid-year population estimates which use the latest fertility, mortality and migration data to estimate the size of the population of the Republic of South Africa. Now, the mid-year estimates for 2018, we are sitting at 57.73 million people that are living in South Africa," said Maluleke.
"In 2017 we were sitting at 56.8 million. We had 1.2 million births, a 0.2 net migration and we had about half a million deaths."
Approximately 51 percent [about 29.5 million] of the people in South Africa are female.
About 29.5 percent of the population is aged younger than 15 years, and approximately 8.5 [percent ( or 4.89 million] of the population is 60 years or older.