HIV/AIDS Awareness - The Bahamas
There were 156 newly reported cases of HIV infections in The Bahamas in 2024 - according to Bahamian health officials. There were 3,988 people living with HIV in The Bahamas at the end of 2024, says Minister of Health and Wellness Dr. Michael Darville, who noted that the figure represents 1.1 percent of The Bahamas population.
"Since 2010 new reports of HIV cases have decreased by 47 percent," he said.
Dr. Nikkiah Forbes, director of the National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme at the Ministry of Health, said New Providence residents made up 82 percent of the new infections. Grand Bahama residents accounted for 10 percent of the new cases, and the remaining eight percent were across the remaining islands.
Dr. Forbes said males represented 63 percent of the HIV cases in The Bahamas.
She said people between the ages of 30 and 39 accounted for 36 percent of those infections. Those between 40 and 49 accounted for 19 percent of the new infections.
Seventeen percent of the new cases were 50 and over, and 14 percent were between ages 15 and 24.
Dr. Forbes said there was one recorded case of mother to baby HIV transmission.
