‘380,000 New HIV/AIDS Infections Occur Annually’

An Abuja-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the AIDS Healthy-care Foundation (AHF), has said that about 380,000 new HIV Infections occur annually among young women and girls globally.
The Senior Manager, Public Relations and Communications of the Foundation, kemi Gbadamosi disclosed this at the function to mark the Girls Act Campaign against new HIV infection in Abuja, recently.
Gbadamosi who noted that statistically, the prevalence of new HIV infection was higher with young woman and girls globally due largely to transactional sex and poverty said the cases were recorded among women between the ages of 15 to 21 years revealing other risk factors, as lack of information and education, traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, sexual violence and rape among others.
Gbadamosi said “statistics from the United Nation (UN) reveal that about 380,000 new infections occur annually among young women and girls of 15-24 years in the sub-saharan Africa. Also, about one in three women and girls have suffered some form of sexual or gender based violence which is an alarming statistics by any standard”.
She explained that the campaign was targeted at young women and girls which HIV and other sexually transmitted infections as providing testing, personal hygiene, menstrual hygiene and psycho-social services.
Gbadamosi stated that the goal of the foundation was to reverse the trend of high new HIV infections among girls between the ages of 15-24 by empowering them with information which she said would-enable them to make informed choices and decisions with respect to their health and overall well-being.
“The campaign has two objectives which include keeping young women and girls who are negative to remain negative and those who are positive to live a life of dignity. It is also aimed at creating a friendly environment for young women and girls to bring the services closer to them because they don’t go to health facilities”, she said.
Gbadamosi continued “we want them to feel comfortable asking questions without being judgmental or with any form of prejudice. If we replicate this in all states, there are chances that we will be able to break the circle of new Hiv infections among these young women.