“AIDS is still here…Let’s not look away.” This is the theme chosen by the Association to Fight AIDS (ALCS) for its tenth edition of Sidaction Morocco which coincides with World AIDS Day, celebrated on December 1 each year. The choice of message is not trivial when we consider the latest statistics published in 2024 by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection which reveal that in 2023, 970 people were infected. That’s more than 3 people per day.
Another figure to remember: 390 died from HIV-related illnesses. That’s more than one person per day. The ministerial report is also an alert regarding the importance of HIV prevalence among young people aged 15 to 34. Indeed, ministry data show that nearly 45% of new cases are recorded among young people in this age group. Also, 870 carriers of the HIV Virus were under 15 years old.
For the ALCS, “this over-representation of young people is largely explained by the lack of information on sexual and reproductive health, as well as by the difficulty, or even sometimes impossibility, for them to access health services. prevention and screening”.
Although it dates back to 2013, the last survey carried out by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of young people aged 15 to 24 regarding sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS confirms the lack of information among young people. It revealed that only 28.95% of boys and 22.19% of girls in this age group say they have received enough information on sexuality. In addition, barely 17% of young people reported systematically using a condom.
Hence the importance and necessity of continuous and permanent actions to raise awareness among the population and those at risk. It is within this framework that the ALCS’s commitment has been made, since 1988, through programs to care for people living with HIV as well as occasional campaigns carried out in December each year. And also screening actions among young people. In 2023, the association carried out nearly 50,000 HIV screening tests, 720 of which were positive, and continues to support more than 7,000 people in highly vulnerable situations, living with this virus.
`In addition, for this same year, 69,187 people belonging to vulnerable populations benefited from face-to-face prevention programs. In addition, 10,629 people belonging to vulnerable populations benefited from remote prevention programs. Nearly 2 million condoms have been distributed and 2,797 injection kits provided to patients.
By organizing the 10th edition of Sidaction Maroc, whose muse is the Moroccan artist Oum, the ALCS aims to raise the funds which will allow it to perpetuate its programs of care for people living with HIV as well as its actions of awareness and screening, with and among young people. Alongside the call for donations campaign, HIV prevention awareness workshops will be organized in all the association’s structures as well as in public and private schools.
Note that the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection reveal that in 2023, the prevalence of HIV was 0.08%. The population living with HIV amounts to 23,000 people, 43% of whom are women. It should also be noted that 22% of people living with HIV did not know their serological status. In other words, almost one in four infected people did not know that they carried HIV.
