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MATSAPHA - About 1 141 adolescent girls have contracted HIV.

Out of these, about 120 have new the HIV. This was revealed by National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS (NERCHA) Programmes Director, Mphikeleli Dlamini. He was presenting on the HIV Recency Data.

Dlamini first explained that HIV had advanced in such a way that they could now detect it just after testing that an HIV positive person was a recent infection. He announced that they could not wait for a long period to get the prevalence rate. Dlamini said recent infection was only up to 12 months and the tests were done in 169 facilities in the country.

The programmes director said 1 141 adolescent females (aged 15-19 years) were first tested for HIV and were confirmed positive. He further mentioned that out of the 1 141, they had to establish how many of them had new HIV. “Of those, 119 adolescent girls had contracted it recently. These are people aged from 15 to 19. We have a problem,” he said.

Tested

He elaborated that outside this bracket, 1 141 tested HIV positive. He said these were girls who were still in high school. He said this was where parents needed to have conversations with their adolescent girls about HIV.AIDS. He said as it were, the HIV positive rate for adolescent girls was high. Dlamini added that it could be worse in 10 year’s time.

Meanwhile, he revealed that in adolescent boys, only one tested HIV positive in the recency data. Dlamini said the high rate in HIV recency in adolescent girls and low rate in boys proved that the fairer sex contracted it from males who were older.

He said these were men who were in the