Rural population increasingly affected by HIV-AIDS

The recorded incidence of HIV-AIDS had stabilised in urban areas of Burundi in the past few years but a significant increase had been noted in cases in rural areas, apparently due to the state of crisis combined with traditional practices, Agence Burundi Presse (ABP) reported on Thursday. There were 340,000 people between the ages of 15 and 44 infected with HIV in Burundi, of whom 185,000 were women and 18,500 children, it quoted Dr
Evelyne Niniahazwe of the national programme for AIDS control (PNLS) as saying. While a 1989 study showed 15 percent of the sample population in urban areas to be infected, studies in Bujumbura municipality had shown a steady increase through the early 1990s but then a drop in the latter half of the decade to 16 percent in 1999, Niniahazwe said at a conference in
Bujumbura. In contrast, only 1 percent of the rural sample in the 1989 study was infected, but the graph rose steadily through the next decade to 20 percent in 1998. The rapid spread of the disease was apparently linked to promiscuous behaviour in (IDP and regroupment) camps as well as such practices as polygamy and ritual scarification using unsterilised cutting
utensils, the report added.