South Africa: Almost 30 Percent of Pregnant Women Have HIV

An estimated 29.4 percent of pregnant women in South Africa last year were HIV-positive, a figure that has been stable for the past four years, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told the National Consultative Health Forum on Thursday. "The HIV epidemic poses one of the greatest health and developmental challenges," Motsoaledi said. "In this country particularly, the epidemic is threatening the reversal of post-apartheid developmental gains." The new data are derived from the latest National Antenatal Sentinel HIV and Syphilis Prevalence survey, which in October 2009 surveyed 33,841 pregnant women from 1,457 antenatal clinics. HIV prevalence among pregnant women ages 15 to 24, who comprised almost half the survey population, was 21.7 percent. The only age group that showed increasing infection was 30- to 34-year-olds, among whom prevalence was 41.5 percent.

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