Two-year-old Maldivian child tests positive for HIV

The National Drug Agency (NDA) has said that a two-year-old Maldivian child has tested positive for HIV.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the end of a workshop by NDA on the occasion of World AIDS day yesterday, Chairperson of NDA Lubna Mohamed Zahir Hussain said that chances are high of mothers passing HIV onto their babies, and that the two-year-old child got the virus from the mother.

Lubna said that drug users have a high chance of contracting HIV, and that a 22-year-old girl who was a drug addict died of the disease in April 2012.

She said that drug users are in the ‘high risk’ category for several diseases.

1 December is marked every year as World AIDS Day.