KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7 – New cases of AIDS among children in Malaysia in 2022 increased by 38.9 per cent to 25 cases from 18 cases in 2021, according to the Children Statistics, Malaysia, 2023 report by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
There were no cases recorded for children under 13 years of age in 2021 and 2022. For children aged 13 to 19-years old, boys recorded a higher number of cases than girls in both 2021 and 2022 with 14 and 21 cases respectively.
There were four cases each of girls with AIDS in the same age category in both years.
Meanwhile, the number of new HIV cases among children in Malaysia also increased by 27.3 per cent from 99 cases in 2021 to 126 cases in 2022.
More boys were infected with HIV (116 cases) compared to girls (10 cases) in 2022. The figure for boys was an increase from the previous year when there were 87 cases of boys infected with HIV.
In 2021, four boys below the age of 13 were infected with HIV while the remaining 83 number of cases occurred among boys aged 13 to 19-years-old.
The following year, five boys below the age of 13 were recorded with HIV infections, while 111 boys between the ages of 13 to 19, were infected with HIV.
Among girls under 13, there were six cases of HIV in 2021 and four cases in 2022. There were six cases each in 2021 and 2022 among girls from ages 13 to 19.
In other health statistics, the DOSM report recorded a marginal increase of severely malnourished children under the age of five from 0.2 per cent in 2021 to 0.3 per cent in 2022.
Six states recorded the percentage of children under five suffering from severe malnutrition above the national level, namely Sarawak (0.9 per cent), Perlis (0.9 per cent), W.P. Labuan (0.8 per cent), Pahang (0.6 per cent), Negeri Sembilan (0.4 per cent) and Sabah (0.4 per cent).
Children under five who are moderately malnourished in Malaysia increased by 0.1 percentage points to 1.4 per cent in 2022 as compared to 2021 (1.3 per cent).
Eight states recorded a lower percentage of children under five suffering from moderate malnutrition compared to the national level, which are W.P. Putrajaya (0.3 per cent), Selangor (0.4 per cent), Johor (0.4 per cent), Kedah (0.8 per cent), W.P. Kuala Lumpur (0.9 per cent), Terengganu (1.0 per cent), Kelantan (1.1 per cent), and Pulau Pinang (1.1 per cent).
