KAMPALA, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's HIV prevalence rate among adults has dropped to 6 percent in the last five years, a new ministry of health report released here said on Thursday.
The preliminary results of the 2016 Uganda Population HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA) indicates that the current prevalence of HIV among adults aged 15-49 years in the East African country stands at 6 percent from 7.3 percent in 2011.
The epidemic prevalence among the children under the age of five is at 0.5 percent, the same with children aged 5-15.
Based on the UPHIA survey results, the total number of adults and children living with HIV in the east African country is now estimated to be approximately 1.3 million people.
"These declines in HIV prevalence may be due to a decreasing number of new infections in recent years due to the impact of the intensified HIV prevention and treatment services in the country," said Jane Aceng, minister of health while releasing the findings.
UPHIA results show that adult HIV prevalence was higher among women at 7.5 percent compared to 4.3 percent among men.
It was also higher among residents of urban areas at 7.1 percent compared to 5.5 percent in rural areas.
The survey was conducted from August 2016 to March 2017 from 12,483 households.
Uganda is renowned worldwide for bringing down its prevalence rate from 18 percent in the 1990s to 6.2 percent in 2005, rising to 7.3 percent in 2011. It has now dropped to 6 percent.
