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Sout h Africa needs to better measure the impact of HIV and AIDS intervention programmes says Mbulawa Mugabe UNAIDS Country Coordinator South Africa.

Mugabe was speaking at the release of the new AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 on Monday ahead of World AIDS Day.

He said the impact of current campaigns would be seen in the future.

However, he added that there was a need to invest in and intensify prevention programmes.

Mugabe said that it was also important to gather and monitor evidence” to ensure that the programmes that South Africa is investing in will make a difference.

The AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 says South Africa is experiencing the highest level of HIV prevalence among pregnant women to date with 29,5% of women attending antenatal clinics in 2004 being HIV positive.

The report says the prevalence was highest among women aged 25 to 34 years of age.

In KwaZulu-Natal prevalence has reached 40 percent while it has remained high at between 27% and 31% in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West provinces.

The report also noted that national adult HIV prevalence rate had risen from less than one percent in 1990 to almost 25% within ten years.

Mugabe said the current evolution in the epidemic in South Africa was the result of a time lag in terms of HIV prevalence in countries in the southern part of Africa compared to countries in the northern part of the continent.

He said that there was a delayed response to HIV and that these infections occurred years ago.

Dr Mugabe said there was a strategy in place; however the challenges were systemic and were around service delivery.

Mark Stirling of UNAIDS Regional Support Team Eastern and Southern Africa said other challenges that needed to be looked at in curbing the epidemic in Southern Africa included inadequacy of services for young people, low levels of knowledge among young people, access to condoms, advice, and issues of gender-based violence.

Dean Peacock programme manager South Africa at the organisation Engender Health said men were key in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

He said men's utilisation of HIV services such as Voluntary Testing and Counseling, and getting ARVs was low in comparison to that of women.

These were some of the factors that needed to be considered in the intervention programmes, he said.

The key in responding to HIV was long term investment in prevention programmes, according to Innocent Ntaganira of the World Health Organisation WHO-Afro.

With regard to treatment he said the number of people on ARVs had trebled in just one year.

This he attributed to the three by five which was a global target that aimed at having three million people on treatment by 2005.

In Africa, said Ntaganira, there were 700 000 people on ARVs since the launch of the initiative in 2003. - BuaNews

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