The Sunday News
Sunday News Reporter
ALMOST 400 gold panners, touts and vendors underwent voluntary HIV testing and counselling in Kwekwe during a one-day outreach programme by the National Aids Council (NAC) on Thursday.
A total of 371 people were tested and eight percent tested positive for the virus and were duly referred for post-test support services. Kwekwe District Aids co-ordinator Mr Alison Kombora said the outreach programme targeted gold panners, touts and vendors because their nature of work did not allow them time to visit health centres in their areas of residence. He said studies in Kwekwe had also shown that gold panners and touts were among some of the key groups highly at risk of HIV.
Kwekwe District has the second highest HIV prevalence rate in the Midlands Province of 20,3 percent after Gweru whose rate stands at 23,3 percent against a provincial average of 15 percent.
“The outreach programme is mainly targeting gold panners, vendors, touts and others in the informal sector who normally do not have time to visit health centres because of their work. We looked at which ones were the HIV hotspots in Kwekwe and said let’s take our interventions there. Areas where gold panning is rife emerged as the major hotspots which is why we have taken this programme to gold panners and vendors as well as touts,” he said.
According to an HIV burden surveillance conducted by the National Aids Council in 2014, Kwekwe had the highest HIV incidence rate of 1,2 percent countrywide. This, according to Mr Kombora, has been attributed to high gold panning activity which has attracted commercial sex workers to Kwekwe over the years.
Mr Kombora said the outreach programmes which are carried out once every quarter of the year were receiving overwhelming responses from members of the public.
“The response has been overwhelming ever since we started this programme. The last outreach programme we did saw over 600 people being tested. The response is encouraging enough for us to continue carrying out similar exercises in future.
“This is a huge step towards meeting our 90-90-90 target,” he said.
The outreach programme also saw a number of services being offered, among them Tuberculosis screening, Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision. A total of 21 males were circumcised, while 54 people were screened for TB.
Some of the people who took part in the programme commended NAC for bringing such critical services closer to people.
“It’s a good idea that they have decided to bring such services to us. I’m a tout and my work does not allow me any free time to go to the clinic and get tested for HIV or get any of these services being offered here. But today I was able to be tested because the service was brought to me,” said Abel Hunda a tout based at Kwekwe Long Distance Bus Terminus.
The outreach programme was carried out with the support of the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Population Services International, Kwekwe City Council, Zimbabwe National Network for People Living with HIV (ZNNP+) and Sesha — an organisation that works with commercial sex workers.
