New HIV cases expected to drop this year

The rate of new HIV cases reported to the Health Ministry in the country is expected to drop to 11 cases per 100,000 people by the year-end.

Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country had shown the same trend as the global HIV/AIDS epidemic which recorded a decline in new cases.

According to him, new HIV/AIDS infection cases had dropped by 50 percent from the figure in 2002 and there was a downward trend in the number of cases reported since 2010.

"From January to September 2015, a total of 2,455 new HIV infection cases were reported to the Health Ministry and 3,273 cases are expected to be reported this year with a notification rate of 10.7 cases per 100,000 people," he said when officiating at the National-Level World AIDS Day 2015 commemoration, here, Saturday.

He also noted that the AIDS-related death rate had decreased by 28 percent since 2002.

"The number of cases involving the sharing of needles among drug addicts had been decreasing over the past years, but free sex had become the primary contributor to the new HIV cases," he said.