The HIV prevalence in the south of Mozambique is "alarming", as the incidence of the virus is much higher than the national average of 16 percent among Mozambicans aged between 15 and 49, local media reported on Saturday.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference last week, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo said emergency measures are needed to reverse the spread of the virus in Maputo and Gaza provinces, and Maputo City.

She announced that the government is drawing up an emergency plan to fight against HIV/AIDS in the southern provinces, which will be ready by the end of July.

The last epidemiological surveillance round, in 2007, showed that Gaza had the highest HIV infection rate in the country, at 27 percent.

Maputo province was not far behind at 26 percent, and the figure for Maputo city was 23 percent, according to the state news agency AIM.

The current projections are that in the short term these infection rates will rise to 35 percent in Gaza, 34 percent in Maputo province and 29 percent in Maputo city, the news agency said.

"We believe that emergency intervention is necessary in the south, just as was done in the central region two years ago", said Diogo.

The central provinces used to be the worst affected part of the country, but have now been overtaken by the south.

Taken as a whole, the central region has a prevalence rate of 18 percent, and the south 20 percent.

Diogo pointed out that this is much higher than the national average.

The figures in the south would be much worse but for the fact that in one southern province, Inhambane, the situation is more or less under control.

The current HIV prevalence rate in Inhambane is 12 percent, which is not greatly changed from the 11.7 percent found in 2004.

Diogo, who was speaking after a meeting of the Management Board of the National Aids Council (CNCS), which she chaired, lamented the failure of young people in the capital to act on the available information.

She pointed to the transport corridors that link Maputo to South Africa and Swaziland, and the thriving informal trade associated with these corridors, which attracts prostitution.

There were also many cases of people with multiple sexual partners, engaged in unprotected sex, despite knowing of the dangers. Minors continued to enter night clubs and similar places, and to consume alcohol, despite the law preventing this.

The law passed several years ago by the Mozambican parliament barring minors from places of nocturnal entertainment has never been respected, and the owners of these places have always turned a blind eye to the presence of under-age girls on their premises.

Diogo said that in the central provinces, after an emergency plan was implemented over two years, the situation is beginning to normalize, although the region still has prevalence levels higher than the national average.

The government would thus continue to implement the emergency plan in the center, while maintaining the state of alert in the northern provinces, which have the lowest levels of HIV prevalence.

The CNCS Board also discussed the serious HIV/AIDS situation in the public sector. The latest estimate is that, of the 160,000 people working in the public administration, 19 percent are HIV positive. 1,900 of these people are now receiving the life-prolonging anti-retroviral therapy.