A health rights activist has called for a collaborative, aggressive and intensive action by the government in combating new HIV infections among young people in Malawi.

Dorothy Ngoma, made the call following an analysis done by Unicef which estimated that over 5million young people aged 19 years will be newly infected with HIV in Sub Saharan Africa between 2017 and 2050. About two-thirds of those will be girls or young women, according to the study.

Ngoma said despite extraordinary progress made to combat new infections in the country, HIV remains a serious threat to the lives of millions of people especially young people.

She stressed the need for the Ministry of Health the Ministry of education to develop a curriculum that will help young people and will enable them get educated on HIV whilst in schools.

The continued toll of HIV among young people reflects the rapidly growing youth population in the region, which is expected to increase by 85 percent by 2050, as well as the slow decline in HIV incidence in this group, which has fallen by some 3% per year since 2010.