HIV drop indicates shift in sexual behaviour

A fall in HIV infections in South Africa shows prevention programmes are working but changing people's sexual behaviour is still a major hurdle, the country's health minister said Wednesday. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told reporters that new figures which showed that South Africa was experiencing the first ever descrease in infection levels since records began was encouraging but no reason for complacency.

However Tshabalala-Msimang said the small decrease of 15.9 percent in 2005 to 13.7 percent in 2006, among under 20s, showed the government campaigns encouraging safe sex were only succeeding up to a point. "In this country, more than 98 percent of people will tell you how it (AIDS) is transmitted. They know, but how they translate it into behaviour change is something different," the minister told journalists.

The decrease, however slight, was still significant, she added.

"We must celebrate the youth of this country who are beginning to see the messages of prevention, prevention, prevention. That for us is significant enough."

The survey, based on surveillance of pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics, showed different trends between younger and older age groups with women between 30 and 39 experiencing an increase in infections.

"There will need to be a concerted focus on older age groups where declines have not been observed ... This may be related to older women not being enabled by their circumstances to moderate factors related to acquiring infection," reads the report.

South Africa's overall HIV prevalence was 18.4 percent in 2006, with some 5.41 million people living with the disease, 257,000 of which are children under the age of 14.

The United Nations pinned South Africa's prevalence rate at 18.8 percent in 2005.

"The overall picture suggests that in South Africa HIV prevalence may be at the point of beginning a downward trend," the prevalence report read.

South Africa recently launched an AIDS plan with the aim of reducing by 50 percent the rate of new infections by 2011, focusing on the youth among whom most new infections occur.

Tshabalala-Msimang has been a major target of criticism both at home and abroad over her approach to AIDS, earning the name of Dr Beetroot for touting the use of vegetables to help combat the disease.