By Sharmain CornetteThe impact of HIV/AIDS in Guyana has been progressively decreasing among the general population over the last six years based on the analysis of the available epidemiological evidence. This disclosure was made by Programme Manager of the National AIDS Secretariat (NAPS), Dr Shanti Singh, when she addressed a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) meeting yesterday at the Regency Suites, Hadfield Street, Georgetown.The intent of the meeting yesterday was to finalise the UNGASS report which will document the progress that Guyana has made over the last two years and to highlight the challenges in the HIV response.According to Dr Singh, there continue to be encouraging signs that suggest that the HIV prevalence among most at-risk populations is beginning to decline. Concomitantly, the proportion of deaths attributed to AIDS has progressively decreased.“We can see the decreasing trend of HIV prevalence among the antenatal population over the years, both for Antenatal (ANC) surveys and the routine prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) data collected. From the ANC surveys,wholesale nfl jerseys, the last recorded prevalence in 2006 of 1.55 percent represents a decrease from the prevalence of 2.3 in 2004.” Further, Dr Singh revealed that routine programme data demonstrates consistent yearly decreasing prevalence, moving from 3.1 percent in 2003 to 1.11 percent in 2009.Some of the participants at the UNGASS meetingWith regards to blood donors, again the prevalence among the population follows a similar pattern of that of the antenatal population, decreasing from close to one percent in 2005 to 0.2 percent in 2009. Since a 0.9 percentage in 2005 there has been a notable reduction in HIV prevalence among blood donors, represented by 0.42 percent in 2006, 0.29 in 2007 and 0.46 in 2008.Last Wednesday,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, the findings of the second round of the Biological and Behavioural Surveillance Surveys (BBSS) for Female Commercial Sex Workers (FSWs) and Men who have sex with men (MSM) were unveiled. However, Dr Singh related that although the prevalence of the disease continues to be higher than among the general population, the prevalence has notably dropped based on the previous BBSS.“For FSWs the prevalence has dropped by a significant 10 percent over the period 2005 to 2009. And for MSM, while there has been a significant decrease,Wholesale Jerseys Online, it is not as significant as that for the FSWs.”And since TB/HIV co-infection continues to present many challenges for management and control,Wholesale Jerseys Authentic, patients diagnosed with active TB present yet another key group to monitor HIV prevalence, according to Dr Singh. For persons with TB testing for HIV as is required by national guidelines for the management of adults and children there has been a reducing prevalence by almost half from 2005 to last year.With regards to the impact of programmes and the outcomes, and specifically AIDS-related deaths, Dr Singh highlighted that the percentage of the overall deaths that were attributable to AIDS has decreased from almost 10 percent in 2002 to seven percent in 2004,Wholesale China Jerseys, almost six percent in 2006 and a further reduction in 2008 to 4.7 percent.The data revealed by Dr Singh are consistent with that acquired at the first National Day of Testing which was conducted in November of 2007. At that point, the HIV prevalence was just about 1.01 percent among 4,504 persons who were tested.“Data from the highly successful Week of Testing conducted in November 2008 and 2009 revealed HIV prevalence of 0.66 percent among 15,489 persons tested in 2008 and 0.5 percent among 28,360 persons tested in 2009.”And though the efforts by the local health sector to combat the disease have been laudable, the Ministry of Health,Cheap NFL Football Jerseys, through its UNGASS indicator has been unable to report on domestic and international AIDS spending by categories and financing sources as the sector was not able to solicit the required technical assistance.