The latest figure, according to the National AIDS Control Program (NACP), a body that oversees AIDS control mechanisms and intervention schemes in the country, represents 37% of the MDG 2015 requirement, which challenged the government to prevent the spread of HIV by half (50%)of the country's population.
"Although our routine study over the last six years indicates that a total of 30,000 persons that have been found positive, but our current projection shows that about 19,111 persons do have HIV, which is just 37% of the MDG goal. We haven't reached the level of the number of persons at the time we did our initial projection. So, we're far below the range of 50%," disclosed Sonpson Blamo Sieh, Program Manager of the National AIDS Control Program.
Liberia, he notes, has HIV/AIDS generalized epidemic prevalence rate of 1.5%, with greater disparity in the prevalence with female having a significantly higher prevalence of 1.8% compare to male with (1.2%).
In spite of such significant difference in HIV prevalence between male and female, he however revealed that enormous progress has been made due to multiple intervention schemes including service expansion, art cohort study, HIV trend analysis among pregnant women and PMTC impact study.
