- Tuesday, April 16, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
TANZANIAN billionaire businessman Mohammed Dewji on Wednesday (11) praised the country’s government over the reduction of HIV/AIDS-related deaths by 50 per cent in the past decade.
In a tweet, Dewji, one of the most celebrated members of the Indian diaspora in Africa whose ancestors had gone to East Africa in the late 1800s, said, “HIV and AIDS related deaths in Tanzania have dropped 50% in the past decade, according to The Office of the Prime Minister. I commend the government for adopting measures to control the disease Alhamdulillah.”
Officials said the same day that Tanzania has halved the number of HIV/AIDS fatalities in the past decade, thanks to several public health interventions. According to the country’s government, the HIV/AIDS death toll in Tanzania has dropped from 64,000 in 2010 to 32,000 in 2020 due to awareness campaigns and life-prolonging medicines.
Jenister Mhagama, the minister of state in Tanzania’s prime minister’s office responsible for policy coordination, said the achievement is a result of several public-health interventions to boost the antiretroviral (ARV) program.
“These statistics show there is a rising use of antiretroviral drugs and people are much more aware and go for HIV testing to know their status,” Mhagama said at the official launch of an HIV/AIDS campaign in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
In 2018, about 1.6 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in the African nation, as per its government. The same year, 72,000 were newly infected with HIV while 24,000 died from the same.
However, unlimited access to ARV drugs for those infected substantially brought down the number of people dying from HIV/AIDS, officials added.
Tanzania has adopted a policy under the recommendation of the World Health Organisation whereby making any HIV-positive person eligible for immediate treatment irrespective of the condition of their body immunity.
The initiative paid off by increasing ARV coverage with 1.1 million HIV-positive people.
Mhagama said the rate of new HIV infections has gone down from seven per cent in 2003 to 4.7 per cent in 2017.
Leonard Maboko, the executive director of Tanzania Commission of Aids, said Tanzanians are increasingly sensitized to test and know their HIV status, and those who are found to be infected get the treatment, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency news outlet reported.
“The fall in HIV deaths and new infections is a result of ongoing efforts to raise public awareness about the virus and the increased use of ARV drug,” he said.
