SUVA, April 4 (Xinhua) -- In the last five years, an average of seven pregnant women in Fiji are diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) annually while more than 400 Fijians are currently under treatment, Fijian Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete told the Parliament here on Thursday.
He said 72 new HIV and AIDS cases were registered in Fiji in 2018 alone and this gave Fiji an incidence rate of 8.6 per 100,000 people.
Fiji has a population of more than 884,000 people and from 1989 to 2018, the total number of diagnosed cases inclusive of both old and new stood at 930, according to Waqainabete.
He said the total AIDS related deaths in the country to date that the ministry knows of is around 117 people while 468 people are living with HIV on treatment at the moment.
Waqainabete said there was no significant difference between the rate of HIV infection in male and female Fijians, but there is a higher prevalence among the young population from 20 to 29 years.
Fiji's Ministry of Health has strategies in place to maintain care from diagnosis to administration against the disease, the minister said.
