The United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF has raised the alarm regarding the increasing number of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) mostly among young people, especially women.
Ahead of the upcoming World AIDS day, the agency recorded 96,000 women and 41,000 men between the ages of fifteen and nineteen who were newly diagnosed with HIV in the year 2023.
This means seven out of ten young people with the said disease are affected by women.
In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of ten HIV infections are from fifteen to nineteen-year-old girls.
Meanwhile, 77% of adults with HIV have access to anti-retroviral therapy, but only five to seven percent of young people aged four years and younger, and six to five percent of teenagers aged 15-19, can get lifesaving medicine from the disease.
More than 600,000 people have died from the said disease since last year.
Unfortunately, from the year 2023, more than one million people have acquired HIV disease and it may increase in the coming years, according to the UNAIDS agency.
The agency expects to prevent this disease in the coming years until 2030.