Motsoaledi advocates for greater HIV awareness in schools

Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health, appealed to parents to allow the department to educate schools about HIV infections before the end of the war against the pandemic.

Motsoaledi's advocacy comes after the release of the results of the 5th Prevalence, Incidence, Behavior and Communication of HIV for 2017 – it shows an increase in new infections among young people aged 15 to 24 years.

Results were revealed at the Department of Health Offices in Pretoria by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (HSRC) and Motsoaledi yesterday

The survey, conducted in the nine provinces, showed that the new infections had decreased to about 23,100, a decrease of 44% since the last survey in 2012.

While all new infections decreased significantly in 2017, about 7.9 million South Africans were still living with HIV.

Researchers found that women aged 15 to 24 years still had higher prevalence rates than men. their male counterparts, with one-third of young women having multiple sexual relations with older men.

Women overall showed the largest decline in HIV prevalence, but remained even higher than males. HIV in adults up to age 49 was 20.6%, women 26.3% and men 14.8%.

Professor Khangelani Zuma, a researcher at the HSRC, said that the marked differences were more marked among young adults than 20 to 35-39. The prevalence of the virus peaked at between 35 and 39 years for women and between 45 and 49 years for men

. with children participating in sexual activities before the age of 15, especially boys. The Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal have recorded increases, stakeholders said.

But the biggest problem for now is new infections among young people. In 1965, Motsoaledi stated that his department had unsuccessfully attempted to launch the schools program in 2013 to tackle five key areas, namely eye tests, vaccination and alcoholism, drugs and smoke in schools. Programs dealing with reproductive health and HIV education, testing and counseling in schools were rejected by parents, governing bodies and teacher unions prior to launch [19659002] "They all refused."

"There was also negativity in the media, stating that we wanted eight-year-olds to have condoms."

Motsoaledi said he hoped, with results showing The impact of what nothing had done, the parents of the department going to the schools, otherwise the "war on HIV" would lead to nothing.

He said that He wanted to probe the problem of young women having more sexual partners because he suspected that they needed more partners to follow the lifestyle offered by the "wicked men" or the "wives." blessers "