BY KWANELE PRINCE TSABEDZE
MBABANE – Eswatini continues to improve its HIV/AIDS programmes.
This was revealed today by the Director of Health in the Ministry of Health Dr Velaphi Okello when delivering a full report on Eswatini Health Information Management Systems (SHIMS) 3, which is the third report under the system.
Dr Okello revealed that the report shows that the country has done a great job with its HIV/AIDS programmes, as all indications are trending in a positive direction.
“The report showed that Eswatini has indeed achieved the 95-095-95 goal we speak about. The number of people in the country with HIV has decreased – yes, they are there in their numbers, but the numbers show that only 0.62% of Emaswati contracted the virus under the period of the study,” revealed Dr Okello.
Other findings by the report show that women are still at higher risk of contracting HIV as compared to men.
Commenting on the findings of the study, Dr Cristine Wist of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) encouraged stakeholders to use high-quality data to close the gaps in the country’s programmes.
“The quality of the data is very good, and is something that represents to me part of the truth of the HIV programme, also pointing to some of the gaps where progress has to be made,” said Dr Wist.
The study was conducted by the Ministry of Health, with the Centre for Diseases Control (CDC).
