NASSAU, Bahamas, (CMC) – The Bahamas recorded 156 cases of HIV infections last year, as health officials revealed that there were nearly 4,000 people living with the virus in the country at the end of 2024.

Health and Wellness Minister, Michael Darville, told a news conference that the 3,988 people living with HIV represent 1.1 per cent of the population and that “since 2010 new reports of HIV cases have decreased by 47 per cent”.

Director of the National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme at the Ministry of Health, Nikkiah Forbes, said New Providence residents made up 82 per cent of the new infections. She said that the Grand Bahama accounted for 10 per cent of the new cases, and the remaining eight per cent were across the remaining islands with males representing 63 per cent of the HIV cases.

The health official said that people between the ages of 30 and 39 accounted for 36 per cent of those infections, while those between the ages 40 and 49 accounted for 19 per cent of the new infections.

Seventeen per cent of the new cases were 50 and over, and 14 per cent were between ages 15 and 24, said Forbes, adding that there was one recorded case of mother to baby HIV transmission.