Demographic impact of HIV / AIDS in Mozambique (update 2000).

Without a doubt all of humanity is alarmed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic due to its negative effects on both population and socio-economic development. These effects already touch day-to-day life of ordinary Mozambicans. In the future the impacts of the epidemic may even worsen unless we all take precautions to prevent the infection and its spread. Providing the most accurate possible knowledge about the size and geographic distribution of HIV/AIDS in our country will contribute greatly to decision-making and more comprehensive and integrated policy formulation to combat the epidemic. The present publication emerges from this context. It attempts to provide updated information about HIV/AIDS prevalence and its demographic impact. It is worth mentioning that the information contained therein should be treated and interpreted with care from both the longitudinal and cross-sectional point of view since it was obtained from different sources. As has been described previously the calculations for HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are based on information gathered from sentinel sites whose geographic coverage has increased during the past few years. While only four sentinel sites existed at the time of the 1998 epidemiological surveillance round the number increased to 20 in 2000. (excerpt)