Panafrican News Agency - December 7, 2001
A recent study conducted in Mbarali district in the south-western Tanzania region of Mbeya attributed the high HIV transmission rate to high levels of social interaction in the affected areas where the highway from Dar es Salaam to the town of Tunduma passes.
The study on HIV/AIDS status in the district's four towns revealed that out of 382 people screened during January and October this year, a total of 108 people, equivalent to 28.2 percent, had tested HIV positive.
Women, the study indicated, were the worst hit sex category with 61 percent of the total female sample testing positive compared to only 27 percent of the males sampled population. The exercise had involved 208 women and 174 men.
Further, the research revealed that out of 604 men and 499 women who donated blood in the selected district during the period under review, 115 and 113 respectively tested HIV positive.
Of the most affected population group, the study indicated, are people between the ages of 20 and 40 years.
"The high level of pregnancy proved there was evidence of unsafe sex among the people in the district," the research indicated, adding, "Out of 894 women tested, 69 had contracted Sexually Transmitted Infections."
The new study contradicts an earlier conducted in July this year by the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP), which indicated that the AIDS scourge was on the decline in the Mbeya area as figures fell from 20 percent to 15 percent between 1994 and 1999.
Mbeya and the western Kagera region are ranked as the worst AIDS- hit regions in Tanzania where the number of pregnant women with the HIV has been increasing every year.
The earlier study attributed the decrease of AIDS cases in Mbeya region to awareness among the people on the destructive effects of the disease and the strengthening of the national anti-HIV/AIDS campaign.
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