Latest update February 10th, 2025 7:48 AM
Apr 15, 2012 News
The HIV prevalence among the general population in Guyana has been steadily decreasing since 2004 from 2.4 percent to 1.07 percent in 2011. Additionally, the proportion of all deaths attributable to AIDS has also steadily declined by 56 percent since 2002.
According to Guyana’s Global AIDS Progress Report 2010-2011, there is a body of evidence which suggests that the epidemic is stabilizing in the country. “There is a steady decline in the number of new reported cases of HIV infection among a significantly higher number of persons who are coming forward to be tested,” said Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, Minister of Health.
He added that compared to 2010 when there were 1,093 new reported cases of HIV infection, there has been a decrease to 972 new reported cases in 2011. A similar trend has been observed in the number of new reported AIDS cases, from 146 in 2010 to 62 in 2011. In 2010, 5.8 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers were infected with HIV. This declined to 1.9 percent in 2011.
HIV prevalence among pregnant women was 0.88 percent in 2010 and 1.08 percent in 2011. The number of tuberculosis (TB) patients testing positive for HIV also declined from 26 percent in 2010 to 23.4 percent in 2011 and prevalence among blood donors decreased from 0.2 percent in 2010 to 0.1 percent in 2011.
The report adds that the sex ratio (male to female) for HIV cases has been fluctuating over the last four years. Surveillance data from the Ministry of Health shows that for the first time since 2000 when the sex ratio was 1.16 there was an observed change, to 0.91 in 2008, then to 1.05 in 2009. This situation was reversed in 2010 and 2011, dropping to 0.8 percent in both years.
There are also more persons in Guyana accessing treatment for HIV and AIDS. Then report indicates that there were 3,432 persons actively receiving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) at the end of 2011, compared to 3,059 in 2010.
“We continue to identify and place more persons on treatment. We have also expanded the number of fixed care treatment sites from 16 in 2010 to 18 in 2011 thereby providing increased national coverage,” Dr. Ramsaran said.
However, despite the many gains in the HIV and AIDS fight, Dr. Ramsaran said there was still the need to remain vigilant to aggressively tackle barriers to universal access in Guyana, such as stigma and discrimination, archaic laws, geography and attrition of highly qualified staff.
“It is imperative that we fully implement the principles, standards and guidelines for HIV prevention to ensure that we develop evidence-informed strategies and activities to achieve prevention particularly among the most vulnerable – youth, sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), drug users and persons with disabilities.
“ We will work assiduously in reducing the vulnerabilities for HIV as we comprehensively address the social determinants of health and tackle the difficult challenging issues of gender based violence,” the Minister added.
Dr. Ramsaran said that in the face of dwindling resources for the HIV response globally, the Ministry will continue to focus its efforts to ensure full integration of its programmes, since offering services in isolation expends much more resources.
“We will continue to mobilize resources to increase services to the populations at greater risk for HIV, to ensure that every Guyanese knows his or her HIV status, that no baby is born HIV positive and that persons living with HIV receive care of the highest standard,” he reiterated.
These measures must be adopted, he said, if Guyana is to preserve the gains made in the last 10 years and increase the country’s social progress. (Allison Ali)
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