High AIDS rates stable, need more work - UN official

Zambia's HIV/AIDS rates are high but stable, due to remedial measures put in place by the government, UNAIDS country coordinator, Catherine Sozi, said earlier this week. Addressing the media in the capital Lusaka on Monday, Sozi said although authorities had implemented strategies that included free HIV counselling and testing, as well as free anti-AIDS treatment, much more still needed to be done in order to get ahead of the pandemic. She noted that between 18 and 20 percent of the country's 11 million people were currently living with the HI virus. "That is to say, one in five Zambians is HIV-positive. Not enough has been done since more and more people are getting infected, mainly young people, not only in Zambia but on the whole continent," Sozi warned.