HIV AIDS prevalence in South Sudan has decreased to 2.6 percent in 2012 compared to three percent in 2010, a difference of 0.4 percent.
The reduction was detected by the Antenatal Care Survey, a national exercise undertaken by the ministry of Health every two to three years to monitor the trend of HIV and Syphilis among pregnant women in antenatal care facilities, Bakhita Radio reported.HIV Commission Chairperson Esterina Novelo Nyilok said the reduction was a great achievement although more was needed to cut down the prevalence of the virus.
She said lack of resources to purchase drugs for people living with the virus remained a great challenge.
The HIV surveillance data does not represent the general population, but it could be used as an input to develop an estimative of HIV prevalence among the general population.
Dr Novelo revealed that the Government was committed to fight the pandemic in order to achieve its objective of zero HIV infection, zero discrimination and zero HIV related death by 2017.
The observed HIV prevalence is the lowest reported in the country since 2007 when the first survey was conducted. However, further analyses of temporal trends are needed to determine whether the change was significant.
Western Equatoria has the highest prevalence of 6.8 percent followed by Eastern Equatoria with 3.4 percent.
The lowest areas are Northern Bahr el Ghazal with 0.3 percent followed by Warrap, Rumbek, Jonglei and Unity states with 1.3 percent each.