HIV prevalence declines in Cameroon

The announcement was made Monday in Yaounde during a joint conference as a prelude to the awareness week which starts Tuesday. "We have made progress in the areas of prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The prevalence moved from 5.5% in 2004 to 4.3% in 2011 with a peak between 35-39 years (8.1%).

The number of patients under treatment increased from 17,156 in 2005 has moved to 134,770 in July 2014", Dixit André Mama Fouda, Minister of health (MOH), on the occasion of the joint conference held by his colleague from the Ministry of advancement of women and the family (Minproff), Marie Thérèse Abena Ondoa and the Acting Secretary general of the Ministry of labour and social security (Mintss) yesterday in Yaounde. The meeting was held as a prelude to the start of the activities of the national week of fighting this disease.

This progress made for a decade permits the expectation of "Generation without AIDS", a slogan chosen for the Cameroonian pandemic week, the objective set by the MOH through the national Committee against AIDS (Cnls). To achieve this, André Mama Fouda recognized the need among other things to protect pregnant women and nursing mothers living with HIV, prevent infection among women and girls of childbearing age.

During the joint press conference, Marie Thérèse Abena Ondoa, invited everyone to take part in community mobilization in order to reduce mother to child transmission.

Also, she took the opportunity to urge women in general and women of childbearing age and pregnant in particular, to travel to the nearest health facility for their screening test. On her part, Scholastique Ngono, Secretary-General at Mintss, representing the Minister, indicated that the average prevalence rate among workers is 2.93%. This is why she invited workers to avoid behaviours that will expose them to the risk of contracting this disease.