More women infected with HIV in last 15 years

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: More Malaysian women are getting infected with HIV even as the needle exchange programme and drug substitution therapy are achieving their targets.
In the last 15 years, the number of women infected with HIV has jumped 10 times from 1.2% in 1990 to 12% in 2005, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek in his speech for the United Nations World AIDS Day Commemoration themed Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.
The text of his speech was read out by the ministry’s Disease Control director Datuk Dr Ramlee Rahmat.
Asked why this was so, Dr Ramlee said infection through heterosexual relationships was on the rise, prompting United Nations resident coordinator Dr Richard Leete to quip: “Drug addicts have sex, that’s the simple fact.”
However, the main mode of HIV transmission in Malaysia is still through the sharing of needles, which accounted for 75% of the cases.
“Till the end of June this year, 73,427 cases of HIV infection had been noted, and the infection rate is still disproportionately high in men, who accounted for 92.6% of all notified cases,” Dr Chua said.
Dr Ramlee told a press conference later that the Methadone Maintenance Therapy and the Needle and Syringe Exchange Programme (NSEP), which came under the Harm Reduction Programme, had been able to reach more than its initial target.
“When we started the NSEP in February this year, we targeted 1,200 people. To date, we have reached 1,233 people. Of that, 107 have been referred for methadone therapy.
“As for the methadone therapy which the ministry started in October last year, we also targeted 1,200 people, but have enrolled 1,240,” he said.
He said they hoped to enrol 5,000 drug addicts for the therapy by the end of 2007, and increase the number of venues providing such therapy nationwide.