PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA: The Health Ministry has set up a task force to check the increasing rate of women being infected with HIV in Malaysia.
Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said the trend must be urgently reversed and the task force had until April to come out with an action plan based on World Health Organisation's recommendations.
"We want women to be more careful and educate themselves on how HIV is transmitted," he told the media after opening the national-level World AIDS Day celebration yesterday.
According to Liow, there was an 11 per cent rise in HIV infections among women since 1997.
He said 75 per cent of women living with HIV were between 20 and 39 years and from this number, 60 per cent were married.
Liow added the number of couples not going for pre-marital HIV/Aids screenings was alarmingly low, and urged more of them, regardless of religion, to be tested.
"These screenings are not to prevent anyone from getting married. It is only to give them a chance to find out about their HIV status and take appropriate action," he said.
Earlier during his speech, Liow said knowing one's HIV status was the most important step in preventing the disease with the condition that appropriate measures were taken after that.
"I urge especially those who are high-risk to come forward to be tested for free at government health facilities," he said.
Liow said Malaysia's overall number of HIV figures dropped to 16.7 cases per 100,000 last year from a high of 28.5 per 100,000 in 2002.
It was projected that the number could dip to 12.8 cases per 100,000 by year end.
He added if the trend continued, it was not impossible for Malaysia to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal to reduce HIV infection rates to 11 cases per 100,000 people by 2015.
