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Although many South Africans are dying as the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravages the country, a light seems to be appearing at the end of the tunnel with the infection rate among the younger generation decreasing significantly and the overall epidemic appearing to stabilize.
According to the results from the latest National HIV Sero-Prevalence Survey the epidemic is stabilizing with a minimal rise of 0,3% compared to the year before.
"While the rate of infection is high and a significant public health problem, the findings do indicate that there is no growth in the epidemic from the previous year," said Lindiwe Makubalo, the health department's Chief Director: Health Information, Evaluation and Research.
Encouraging is the more than five percent decrease in the under 20 HIV rates since 1998. In 1998, the ante-natal survey found that 21% of women tested were HIV positive, but the latest figures showed that this figure had dropped to 15,4%.
Also, the sexually transmitted diseases (STD) rates among all the women had dropped from 10,8% in 1998 to 2,8% in 2001.
This is significant as it is well accepted that the presence of an STD dramatically increases the risk of transmission.
"There has got to be something happening when one considers all these factors," Makubalo said.
A total of 16 730 specimens were tested with 24,8% testing HIV positive.
All the provinces appeared to have stabilized with a statistically marginal increase in the Northern Cape.
The HIV prevalence decreased in KwaZulu-Natal and remained unchanged in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Western Cape between 2000 and 2001.
Makubalo said the significant increase in HIV prevalence among women 30 to 39 years could be due to many factors, but two explanations could be:
The cohort effect whereby the younger women who were positive before were now moving into a different (older) age band;
Women in their thirties tend to be in more stable relationships and they could find it more difficult to implement some prevention measures.
On the basis of the model used by the health department to generate estimates of HIV infection in the general South African population, it is estimated that by 2001, 2,65-million women between the ages of 15 and 49 years were HIV infected and 2,09-million men.
It is estimated that 83 581 babies became infected through the mother-to-child-transmission route.
It is estimated that by 2001 about 4,74-million people in South Africa had become infected with HIV. This is in comparison to 4,7-million who were infected by 2000.
The health department was also putting measures in place to record the HIV incidence among the women tested. This new laboratory test, called Starhs, would show whether she had become infected in the last six months or not.
It is also an important tool for evaluating intervention programmes.
Two of the latest versions of the test are the Detuned Assay and Vironistika. Both are capable of measuring whether an infection is recent (within six months) or not.
Developed by the Centre for Disease Control in the United States, the tests are being used in Clade B virus countries. South Africa has predominantly Clade C.
But the Vironistika test has now been remodified to test for Clade C in South Africa.
"It is like an Elisa test, but it picks up the infection in the last six months," Makubalo said.
She said the department had re-tested all the samples from 1999 and 2000, using this test and was going to do the same with the 2001 samples.
"We will be able to detect whether the infections are recent or not. If our interventions have been effective, the test should show that the infections were old and not within the last six months," Makubalo said.
South Africa's ante-natal survey is acknowledged by the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS as one of the best in the world.
An independent statistician from the Medical Research Council was included in the survey.
This article is courtesy of Health-e News Service
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