Health Dept to allocate multi-billion US funding to HIV treatment
The Department of Health says it will use the money received from the US government to strengthen thecountry's response to the HIV epidemic, particularly among youth.
The R16-billion funding over two years was announced on Sunday at the Global Citizen Festival in Johannesburg.
According to the department, the country has a high percentage of young people infected with HIV.
Deputy Director-General in the department - Yogan Pillay, says the department will zone in on a number of districts where the prevalence is high.
"The money will be used to find and initiate on-treatment, and get an additional two million people on treatment by December 2020.
"Critically, the people that we will be finding are not only those who are sick and come to our facility but it will also includes those who don't have symptoms yet of HIV but are HIV positive. We need to go into communities and find them," Pillay said.
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The department says it's the lack of support among young people that contributes to the high infection rate among the youth.
Health's Yogan Pillay cited other challenges like the blesser phenomenon.
"One of the things that drives young people to have sexual relations with older men is the issue of poverty - related to a lack of jobs and employment opportunities. In our advance consumer society - young people want cellphones, and hairstyles and that contributes to this," he said.
According Statistics SA's mid-year population estimates for 2018, about 19% of people in the country aged between 15 and 49 are HIV positive.
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