SHAH ALAM, Nov 28 — The Health Ministry has today revealed that same-sex acts between male partners are the main cause of HIV transmission in Malaysia, taking over 57 per cent of the total cases.
In conjunction with World HIV Day 2019 on December 1, the ministry had released the statistics on the change in the pattern of HIV transmission mode since the disease was first recorded in Malaysia in 1990 until 2018.
According to the data, in 2018, only three per cent of the total cases were due to shared needles between drug addicts, while another 37 per cent were from heterosexual activities.
“The pattern of the HIV transmission mode in Malaysia has changed since it was first discovered in Malaysia in 1986. At the beginning of 1990, the majority of the HIV infection was through the sharing of needles between drug addicts (61 per cent).
“The number of infection through shared needles had dropped to half of the total cases in 2010 (48 per cent), but there was an increase in the transmission mode through heterosexual acts (40 per cent) in the same period,” the ministry said in a statement today.
According to the data produced by the ministry, there were no reported cases of HIV transmitted through pregnancy or same-sex activities in 1990 while 34 per cent of the total infections were due to other reasons.
Apart from infection through needle-sharing between drug addicts and sexual activities, the ministry said HIV is also transmitted through other causes including mother-to-child during pregnancy, blood or organ donation, and accidentally pricking an infected needle.
