HIV/AIDS in Zambia

HIV/AIDS in Zambia is the national course of a generalized epidemic and of the government and voluntary response to it. The disease is transmitted through sex, intravenous drug use and mother-to-child transmission. Zambia had a national HIV prevalence of 11.3 percent among adults aged 15 to 49 as of 2018, and the 2000 census found about one million people, 15 percent of the population and 60 percent of them women, affected. The epidemic has left an estimated 600,000 orphans and was more common in cities than in rural areas, with Copperbelt Province and Lusaka Province the most affected. The government formed an AIDS surveillance committee in 1986, made an emergency plan by 1987 and offered antiretroviral therapy free to everyone by 2005, with United Nations and voluntary organizations helping. This entry is a national epidemic profile and is not medical advice.