Survey: SA’s HIV prevalence drops by 1.3% in 2022
Approximately 7.8 million people were living with HIV in South Africa in 2022, compared to 7.9 million in 2017.
The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), in collaboration with its partners, on Monday announced key findings from the Sixth South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence, and Behaviour survey (SABSSM VI).
The data was collected over 15 months, from January 2022 to April this year, and more than 27,000 households were interviewed in this period.
The SABSSM highlights progress toward ending HIV in South Africa, which is the country with the world’s largest HIV epidemic.
Announcing the survey’s key findings, HSRC executive director Khangelani Zuma revealed that the percentage of all people living with HIV in South Africa has decreased.
"The HIV prevalence was found to be 1.3% lower than the estimate that was found in 2017. So, we found that HIV prevalence in 2017 was 14%, which translated to 7.9 million people. In 2022, we found that the prevalence was 12.7%, which translated to 7.8 million people.
"There 107,000 people living with HIV in 2022 than we had in 2017."
LEADING PROVINCES
Provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Eastern Cape, and Mpumalanga were among those with the highest HIV prevalence, ranging from 18.7% to 21.8%.
Prevalence in the country ranges from 8.2% in the Western Cape to 21.8% in KZN.
"Provinces like Northern Cape and Western Cape still have the low HIV prevalence between 8.3% and 11.6%, KZN is still leading on the prevalence of HIV, and of course, we need to understand this in relation to the intervention and the programme," said Zuma, who also explained that several factors contribute to HIV prevalence.
The survey also found that people living with HIV are now living longer than they were in 2017.
"These factors include fewer people getting infected with HIV, more children born HIV-negative, AIDS-related mortality, and people ageing and dying from natural causes,” added Zuma.
"The increase in the population (birth of HIV-negative babies) would also increase the denominator of HIV-negative people in the country. The epidemic curve also shows an ageing population of people living with HIV who are living longer as the epidemic stabilises."
The survey also showed that the prevalence of HIV among young women (20.3%) was nearly twice that of men (11.5%).
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