Stakeholders in the health industry have welcomed the progress the country has made in fighting HIV and AIDS. [b]South African Medical Association president, Dr Phophi Ramathuba[/b] acknowledged however that the country still had a long way to go to fight the disease. An [s]African Brains[/s] report says that according to Ramathuba, SA has doubled the number of people who are receiving anti-retroviral treatment, from 1m to 2.4m people in 2013. And more than 20m South Africans have taken the HIV test since the launch of the HIV, Counselling and Testing (HCT) in 2010. The [b]Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa)[/b] said that one of the challenges that need to be immediately was the employment of more nurses in both rural and urban areas.
The amount of people infected with HIV daily in SA has decreased by more than 50% since 1999, the latest [b]South Africa Survey published by the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR)[/b] has found. In 1999 there were 646,806 new infections, the equivalent of 1,772 a day. By 2013, new infections had decreased to 321,300, the equivalent of 880 a day. The data was sourced from the [b]ASSA2008 AIDS and Demographic Model published by the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA). Lerato Moloi, head of research at the IRR[/b], attributed the decrease in new HIV infections to a number of interventions including awareness programmes, c ondom distribution, and male circumcision.
[link url=http://africanbrains.net/2014/02/17/stakeholders-welcome-progress-hiv-programme]Full African Brains report[/link]
[link url=http://allafrica.com/stories/201402201314.html]Full press release[/link]
[link url=http://www.sairr.org.za/services/publications/south-africa-survey/south-africa-survey-2012]SAIRR survey[/link]