The Sunday News
Lungile Tshuma Sunday News Correspondent
MORE than 5 000 people have voluntarily tested for HIV under the door-to-door voluntary testing as part of the Zimbabwe Population Based HIV Impact Assessment (Zimphia).
The Zimphia team is winding up its survey in three provinces, Mashonaland Central, Manicaland and Matabeleland North and is expected to move to other provinces soon. In an interview, International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP) at Columbia University chief of party, Dr Godfrey Musuku said the programme was progressing well and they were optimistic that the survey will be done by April.
“Everything is moving very well. At the moment we are finishing our work in Mashonaland Central, Manicaland and Matabeleland North provinces.
“People are responding well as we have not yet experienced any problems. So far more than 5 000 people have been tested and we hope to finish the exercise by April this year.”
Dr Musuku also said their engagement of traditional leaders was bearing fruit as people were finding it easy to support the programme.
He said through traditional communication channels most communities had been aware of the programme.
Zimphia aims to visit 15 000 randomly selected households, to interview approximately 30 000 people.
The survey, which started in October last year is running for six months, and is being led by the Ministry of Health and Child Care in partnership with the National Aids Council, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, Biomedical Research and Training Institute and other international partners like ICAP at Columbia University.
It is aimed at measuring the burden of HIV and the impact of Zimbabwe’s HIV prevention, care and treatment services.
The survey will also see the upgrading of hospitals across the country and these are Bulawayo’s referral hospital, Mpilo, Parirenyatwa, Gokwe, Gweru, Guruve, Gwanda, Karoi, Mutoko, Hwange, Mutare, Masvingo and Beitbridge.
Hospitals will also be equipped with 27 pima machines (used for CD4 count testing) and 45 height boards and scales (for growth monitoring), which would be distributed to clinics and hospitals across the country.
