More and more housewives getting infected with HIV

Wednesday November 24, 2010 MYT 6:45:12 PM
By P.ARUNA
Star

KUALA LUMPUR: The total number of HIV cases in Malaysia has dropped in the past five years but more women are getting infected.

The number of women and young girls infected has risen from 4% in 1995 to 18% by the end of last year with a majority of them housewives.

Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development, Senator Heng Seai Kie said that in Asia, 25% to 40% of newly-infected women and girls contracted the disease from their husbands or boyfriends.

Quoting the Commission on Aids in Asia report in 2008, she said men, infected through intravenous drug use and unprotected sexual intercourse with sex workers, would increasingly infect more women in the future.

“The data we have in Malaysia shows that this is already happening in Kelantan, Sabah, Sarawak, Kedah and Johor,” she said.

Senator Heng Seai Kie’s speech was read out by Director General of the National Population and Family and Community Development during the launch of the ‘State of the Malaysia HIV and AIDS Epidemic 2010’ at Park Royal Hotel here Wednesday.

According to a report by United Nations Malaysia, 79,619 men and 8,091 women in the country were infected with HIV over the past 23 years.

There were 99 cases of infants, below the age of 2 years, infected with the disease between 1986 to 2009, while the age group of 30-39 faced the highest risk with 37,709 cases.

The report also showed that Johor recorded the highest number of cases compared to other states followed by Selangor and Kelantan.

The Malay community recorded the highest number of infections with 62,953 cases followed by the Chinese ethnic group with 12,687 and Indians with 6929 cases.

“It is no longer just people who inject drugs and sell sex who are at risk of HIV infection,”

“Ignorance and apathy puts us all at risk,” said Heng.

She added that the ministry had set up centres such as the Pusat Bantuan Khidmat Sosial and Rumah Nur Salam in Chow Kit to respond to the challenges.

“We should open our doors to vulnerable young people in need of sexual reproductive health services and guidance,” she said adding that the ministry had allocated RM50 mil towards establishing shelter homes for People Living with HIV nationwide.

She also called for parents, teachers and students to support the implementation of the Reproductive Health and Social Education syllabus that will be introduced in schools nationwide next year.

“It will enable our youth to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies, sexual abuse and sexually transmitted infections,” she said.

Increase in women with HIV

July 14, 2010
By JOSHUA FOONG
Star

KUALA LUMPUR: The rise in the number of women being infected with HIV is an indication that the disease has gone beyond affecting just drug users and sex workers.

“HIV infection among women had increased from 9.4% in 2000 to 19.1% in 2008,” Malaysian AIDS Foundation chairman Prof Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman said yesterday.

“As of last year, 87,710 people were infected with HIV/AIDS since 1986. Some 12,039 of them died of AIDS-related complications.”

Dr Adeeba said although most HIV cases were due to injecting drug users, there had also been an increase of up to 29.9% due to heterosexual relationship.

“Prevention, stigma and discrimination are the three main issues for Malaysia in dealing with HIV/AIDS,” she said.

Dr Adeeba will be one of the three scientific coaches in the International AIDS Conference 2010 in Vienna from July 18 to July 23 where she will be coordinating the scientific programme for the conference.

The Universiti Malaya Infectious Diseases Unit head is also the only Asian representative in the 28-member Conference Coordinating Committee.

Dr Adeeba said that the conference would present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogues on the major issues facing the global response to HIV.

The conference is the premier gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV/AIDS and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic.

Austrian ambassador Mag Andrea Wicke said the event would be attended by over 25,000 participants, making it the world’s biggest event putting HIV on the front burner.

“This is not just a medical conference. It discusses political, social and economic policies in relation to HIV/AIDS,” she said.

Surge in women HIV carriers

May 17, 2009
Surge in women HIV carriers
Star

KUALA LUMPUR: More Malaysian women are being infected by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) through unprotected sex than needle sharing.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said this could be observed from the rapid surge in the number of women HIV carriers.

She said the ratio between women and men infected with HIV was 1:70 in 1993 but now it is 1:10.

“Although the total number of AIDS patients has dropped, more women and children have been infected.

“We are very worried about the unstoppable spread of HIV in the country,” she said, adding that as of last year, Malaysia recorded some 84,000 HIV carriers. Last year alone, 3,692 new cases were reported and 900 people died of AIDS, she said.

Of the new cases, 48 were children and 704 women, Chew said after opening a Multi-Faith Commu- nity Gathering in conjunction with International AIDS Memorial Day at PT Foundation yesterday.

She praised the volunteers of PT foundation for their efforts and dedication to HIV/AIDS work that had led the non-profit body to win the Best NGO of the Year Award.

“You all have helped over 16% of the people under the Positive Living programme return to full-time em- ployment,” she said.

PT Foundation is a community-based organisation providing HIV/AIDS education and care programmes for marginalised communities, mainly sex workers, transsexuals and family members of AIDS patients.

Stemming the alarming rise of HIV amongst women

Dec 16, 2008

Star
By LESTER KONG

PETALING JAYA: The rate of Malaysian women living with HIV is on the rise and the Health Ministry has set up a taskforce to stem this alarming trend.

Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said the trend must be urgently reversed, adding that the taskforce has until next April to come out with an action plan based on World Health Organisation recommendations.

“We want women to be more careful and educate themselves on how HIV is transmitted,” he told the media after opening the national-level World AIDS Day celebration here on Tuesday.

Liow said there was an 11% rise in HIV infections among women in the 10 years since 1997.

Of women living with HIV, 75% were between 20 and 39 years of age, and of that number, 60% were married.

Another alarming trend was the low number of couples foregoing pre-marriage HIV/AIDS screenings, Liow said. The number of couples going for checks hovers between 0.05% and 0.1%.

“These screenings are not to prevent anyone from getting married. It is only to give them a chance to find out about their HIV status and take the appropriate action whether the results are positive or negative,” he said.

The good news, Liow said, was that Malaysia’s overall number of HIV cases had dropped to 16.7 cases per 100,000 Malaysians last year from a high of 28.5 cases per 100,000 in 2002.

It was projected that the number could reach 12.8 cases per 100,000 people by year end.

“This trend means it is not impossible for Malaysia to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing rate of HIV infections to 11 cases per 100,000 people by 2015,” he said.

He added that the RM500mil allocation under the 2006-2010 National Strategic Plan to combat HIV/AIDS remained unchanged despite the worsening economic situation.

Women account for 50% of AIDS infections

By Karen Arukesamy
Sun2Surf

PETALING JAYA (Dec 9, 2008): The new face of AIDS is increasingly female and young.
In the early years of the AIDS pandemic, men vastly outnumbered women among people living with HIV. However, current statistics showed half the number of HIV-positive people globally are female.

More than 20 years since its first reported case in 1986, Malaysia has recorded a total of 80,938 infections.

Although the new cases reported annually have averaged at 5,640 over the past 10 years, surprisingly, the number of new infections among men has decreased steadily during the period.
The feminisation of the epidemic has bucked the previous trend of male domination among those infected in Malaysia.

The latest report by the Health Ministry and United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), entitled Women and Girls Confronting HIV and AIDS in Malaysia 2008, revealed that new HIV infections among women rose drastically to 16% in 2007 from 1.2% in 1990, most of whom were housewives.

Women and girls made up of almost one-fifth of newly infected persons nationwide in 2006, and were mainly infected by heterosexual intercourse.

This reflects a dynamic unfolding in Malaysia: Men continue to get infected with HIV through injected drug use and women through heterosexual transmission.

Unicef representative to Malaysia Youssouf Oomar said in his keynote address that young people are very important in the struggle to control the HIV epidemic in Malaysia.

“With HIV infections rising steeply among women in the last 10 years, children are the ones who will bear the consequences of this epidemic,” he said at the launch of the report last week.

“Yet children and youth are the ones who have the power to change attitudes and behaviour, and alter the course of HIV for generations to come,” he stressed.

“Malaysia has given HIV a strong focus in the national agenda, in line with the country’s commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG),” he added.

He said Malaysia is working to achieve the goal of combating HIV and AIDS by 2015.

“One of the key strategies to achieving the Sixth MDG is by addressing women and children’s vulnerability to HIV,” he said.

Youssuf said both the Health Ministry and Unicef believe there must be a gendered response to the impending HIV crisis confronting women and girls in Malaysia; a response that is sensitive to the socio-cultural context of women’s lives.

“Unicef commends Malaysia for recognising the importance of addressing HIV vulnerability among women, young people and children, as identified in Strategy 4 of the National Strategic Plan on HIV and AIDS 2006-2010,” he said.

The Unicef and UNAIDS global campaign “Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS” complements this strategy by addressing four core components of HIV prevention among women, children and young people, he said.

“We must increase women’s and girls’ knowledge of the infection; expand access to sexual reproductive health education and testing; increase their ability to protect themselves from HIV; as well as fight gender discrimination and violence,” he said.

“We must empower women to make positive decisions in the face of the HIV epidemic – for themselves and for their children,” Youssouf said.

At the same time, men should embrace the role that they can play in creating positive change for women and children, he said.

The report’s recommendations, among others, are:
» Establish and strengthen the Women, Girls and HIV Desk;
» Enhance the availability and capacity of technical expertise at the National AIDS Secretariat;
» Increase the availability of gender dis-aggregated data and analysis;
» Undertake more social science research to examine HIV-related vulnerabilities and risks;
» Identify and implement specific programmes which address issues of HIV vulnerability for women;
» Encourage women to go for voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT); and
» Strengthen sexual reproductive health education and youth initiatives.