Namibia achieves 50% HIV transmission reduction in last five years

Musa Zimunya

WINDHOEK, JULY 9 – While Namibia’s HIV prevalence stands at 12.6 per cent, the country has achieved 50 per cent reduction on HIV transmission in the past five years. This was announced by UNFPA country representative to Namibia, Ms Dennia Gayle during the launch of the State of the World Population (SWOP) report in Namibia.

“We have indeed come a long way today and today Namibia is nearing epidemic control,” she added.

She however said that hard won gains remained under threat “in a world stricken by multi-dimensional forms of inequailty, persistent discrimination, political turbulence, rising conservatism, resource constraints and funding cuts to mention a few.”

World figures indicate positive milestones since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, which is also known as the ‘Cairo Conference.’

“For instance, globally, the average number of births per woman was 4.8 then, compared to 2.9 in 1994 and 2.5 today; fertility rates in the least developed countries dropped from 6.8 in 1969, to 5.6 in 1994 and 3.9 in 2019,” said Gayle.

She said, also, that the number of women who died from pregnancy-related causes had decreased from 369 per 100 000 live births in 1994 to 216 in 2015. Furthermore, 24 per cent of women used modern contraceptives in 1969, a figure that has more than doubled over the years considering that 52 and 54 per cent figures recorded in 1994 and 2019 respectively. – musa@namibiadailynews.info