Mozambican president says battle against HIV/AIDS far from over

MAPUTO, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi said on Friday in capital city Maputo that despite the government's effective efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, the battle is far from over.

The president made this remark during the celebration of the International Day for Combating HIV and AIDS. The motto in Mozambique is "Prioritizing prevention to accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS."

"After the efforts undertaken from 2011 to 2013, there has been a 25 percent drop in the rate of sexual transmission. We also reduced the transmission from the mother to the baby in half," said the president.

The president acknowledged that despite these impressive results, "the fight against this disease is far from over."

"More than 800 thousand children are orphaned in Mozambique because of HIV," said the President, "we must stop the spread of HIV. It's time to act and act together," he added.

Another concern of the president is the high number of patients who drop out from treatment. He added that finding and caring for those who give up treatment is another job.

"The data indicates that 62,000 people in 2016 died from HIV. More recent data shows that there are about 1.9 million people are carriers, this means that one in eight adults lives with HIV," said Nyusi.

The president also pointed to the social exclusion of those living with HIV/AIDS as an unacceptable problem.

Mozambique is the fifth country in the world with the largest number of new cases of HIV infection.

The province of Gaza, in southern Mozambique, has the highest rate of 24.4 percent of people living with HIV/ AIDS. Enditem