Minister for Health and Medical Services, Rosy Akbar has said HIV infections in Fiji are common among the age groups of 20 to 29 years, which this shows that a large number of young people are sexually active at an early age.

In opening the Review and Formulation of the New Adolescent Health Services Programme, the Minister said the main goal was to equip every adolescent and every youth in Fiji with accurate, reliable and relevant knowledge and lifeskills.

“Community participation is looking after the health and wellbeing of our adolescents. Promoting health, and prioritising education is very important,” said Ms Akbar.

“Why adolescent is very important is because it’s a very vulnerable age group where they transition as a child to adults,” said National Advisor for Family Health, Dr TorikaTamani.

Dr Tamani said it’s a stage when most of them don’t have access to information to make the right choices and decisions.

“Today’s meeting allows us to look through the programmes and strategies and how we can better our clinical and public health services for adolescents in the long term,” she said.

Ms Akbar also highlighted the challenge of technology and accessibility especially shifting healthcare from the cities to the rural areas where the most needy and vulnerable groups of the population live.

Health professionals and non-government organisation representatives attended the one day event at the Holiday Inn in Suva yesterday.