Malanje- The director-general of the National Institute for the Fight Against AIDS, Maria Furtado, on Tuesday in Malanje Province, reaffirmed the government's commitment to reducing the rate of mother-to-child transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from 15.5% to six per cent by 2026, with a view to improving the country's position in sub-Saharan Africa.
Angola is currently among the three countries with the highest rates of vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, which is why the government has been prioritising care for pregnant women and children.
The official, who was speaking after a meeting between the Malanje government and a delegation from the Ministry of Health and United Nations partners, said that the problem of the disease had a major influence on the population's mortality rate in the country.
She recalled that the picture of vertical transmission was less encouraging in 2018, when the rate was 26%, but as a result of the Born Free to Shine programme it has been possible to reduce it significantly.
Maria Furtado stressed that the country has a specific programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, which is fundamentally based on testing and treating HIV-positive women, promoting prenatal consultations and reducing home births, the last two of which are below 50% in the country.
In order for the programme to succeed, she considers it necessary to raise awareness among women, set up psychological support teams within communities, reinforce the number of tests among women, as well as encourage antiretroviral treatment, among others.
On the other hand, the representative of the Department of Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Fernanda Alves, called on provincial governments to seek private funding to step up the fight against AIDS in the country, instead of relying exclusively on the General State Budget.
The chairman of the Angolan Network of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Services Organisations (ANASO), António Coelho, pointed to the improvement of primary health care in communities as one of the factors contributing to the reduction of deaths related to HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
He also emphasised the need to improve the collection of AIDS data, as its reliability determines the success of national eradication strategies.
Meanwhile, the vice-governor of Malanje for the Political, Economic and Social sector, Franco Mufinda, highlighted the local government's investments in primary health care and said that in the near future there would be an intensification of awareness-raising activities about the disease in the province, which has 9,000 infected people.
Another governmental commitment is related to making more tests available and reducing the vertical cut-off from the current 19% to 15%.
The delegation has been working in Malanje since today, as part of the advocacy visits to accelerate the response against HIV-AIDS in the country.
On Wednesday, the last day of the visit, a consultation meeting is planned for the AIDS response plan in the region.
Data from 2022 points to 310,000 people living with the disease in the country, of which 190,000 are women.
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