National Aids Council to host youth forum |27 February 2020
According to UNAids, in 2018, an estimated 37.9 million people were living with HIV around the world and 770,000 people worldwide died of Aids-related illnesses.
In Seychelles there were 109 (34F/74M) newly diagnosed cases of HIV in 2019, compared with 120 cases detected in 2018. This shows a decrease of 11% compared to 2018.
One hundred and seventy two (107M, 65F) started on ARV in 2019 compared to 100 in 2018.
Fourteen new cases of HIV were detected from prison.
In 2019, twenty three new HIV pregnancies were recorded. Nineteen followed PMTCT. Two died before birth and there was one case of mother to child transmission.
There were 18 new cases of Aids in 2019 compared to 23 in 2018 (12M/6F).
There were 67 new Hepatitis C infections in 2019 compared to 87 in 2018.
(CDCU Report 2019)
The National Aids Council’s vision is to pave the way to an Aids free Seychelles. Its mission is to attain universal coverage of HIV prevention, treatment to care continuum of services that are effective, inclusive and adapted to needs.
Its strategic goals are to have 90% of persons living with HIV (PLHIV) know their status, 90% of PLHIVs who know their status to receive treatment and to have 90% of PLHIVs on treatment virally suppressed.
As part of the National Aids Council’s efforts to achieve the above goals, it is organising a forum to target youth in sports. The forum will take place today.
Objective of the youth forum for sportsmen and women:
The main objective of the forum is to educate the participants on HIV / Aids, means of HIV and hepatitis transmission and inform them on prevention, testing and treatment.
It is expected that at the end of the forum the 80 young men and women, who have attended, would have an increased awareness and true knowledge of HIV / Aids and hopefully will share with family and friends.
They will be given IEC materials which contains a lot of information.
These young sportsmen will travel overseas for competitions and training. They will better understand how to be responsible and avoid infections.
The forum is organised in collaboration with the Steering Committee for the National Strategic Plan for HIV/ Aids and Viral Hepatitis and the National Sports Council.
Contributed by the National Aids Council