Maldives identifies “first” child HIV infection
04 Dec 2012, 12:00 PM
Neil Merrett
Senior health figures have called on the government, NGOs and members of the private sector to help step up attempts to promote AIDS prevention in the country after authorities discovered that a two year-old child had tested HIV positive earlier this year.
While accepting that HIV infection rates remained relatively low in the Maldives, Minister of State for Health Lubna Zahir Hussain said that efforts needed to be increased across all sectors of society to tackle attitudes towards high-risk behaviours that allow the virus to be transmitted.
Lubna heads the National Drug Agency (NDA). Her comments followed the hosting of a special NDA workshop on HIV prevention held on December 1 to commemorate World AIDS Day. The workshop was focused particularly on the HIV infection through drug abuse.
Though statistics indicate HIV infection rates have been limited in the Maldives over the space of the last two decades, health officials in the Maldives have begun to raise concerns about the risk of cases spreading across the country.
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