The report made public Thursday, July 18, 2019 in Yaoundé at a ceremony chaired by Koumpa Issa, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence in charge of Veterans and War Victims shows that the prevalence in the military is below the national average which stands at 3.4 per cent.

The statics also indicate a consistent decline from 2005 when the rate hit 11.3 per cent. The 2018 HIV Sero-prevalence and Behavioural Risk Survey in the Cameroon Defence Forces was carried out from July 17 to August 10, 2018.

The implementation of the study was done by the Directorate of the Military Health of Defence of Cameroon with technical support from its partner METABIOTA Cameroon and the National Committee for the Fight against AIDS, CNLS, at the Ministry of Public Health.

Speaking at the event, Koumpa Issa, said the Ministry of Defence was the first sector to initiate the HIV programme in Cameroon in 1990. “This served as a model for other sectors and has greatly contributed to the development of national and regional policies in the sector.”

Most demographic studies in Cameroon focus on general population without special attention to the Defence Forces, while the Defence Forces by nature of their profession face specific risk factors of HIV, an epidemic that could compromise their operational capacity.

Previous studies conducted among Cameroon’s Defence Forces showed varied prevalence rates. In 2012 the HIV prevalence rate was 9.8 percent, 11.3 percent in 2005 and 6.0 percent in 2011.

However, the 2018 study will update the data in the defence sector in order to better take into account the current situation of HIV infection in intervention programmes.

The 2018 results of the study reveal an overall HIV prevention prevalence rate of 3.3percent among male defence forces and 3.4per cent among female.

The study was conducted with funding from PEPFAR through the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme, DHAPP, of the Department of Defence of the United States of America.

The importance of the study is to provide credible data on the HIV infection situation in the Cameroon Defence Forces in 2018 and assesses the positive impact on the infection prevention and management efforts by the Cameroonian Defence Forces and its partners.

Although the defence sector has been able to identify its infected staff, 90 per cent of those diagnosed has been put under effective antiretroviral therapy and viral replication was suppressed in almost 90 per cent of them, thus meeting the national and international goals of the fight against HIV.