The Sunday News
ZIMBABWE has reportedly recorded a 34 percent reduction in new HIV infections between 2005 and 2013, it has been learnt.
According to a report by UNAids, Zimbabwe accounted for three percent of all new HIV infections globally.
Deputy national ART co-ordinator (Aids and TB Programmes) in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Regis Choto revealed that according to figures at hand HIV prevalence declined from a peak of 28 percent in 1997 to 15 percent in 2013.
“The HIV decline is attributed to successful implementation of prevention strategies especially behaviour change, high condom use and reduction in multiple sexual partners. HIV prevalence has plateaued due to improved survival linked to improved ART coverage.
“Zimbabwe has recorded a 34 percent reduction in new HIV infections between 2005 and 2013, with Malawi recording the highest reduction in new HIV infections during the same period in Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Dr Choto.
He further revealed that Zimbabwe experienced a 57 percent reduction in Aids related deaths from 2005 to 2013 with estimations that this year new HIV infections will drop to 62 830 and 48 999 in 2016.
Dr Choto revealed that in the 10 Sub-Saharan countries studied Malawi had recorded the highest reduction at 65 percent, Tanzania (46 percent), Zambia (41), South Africa (39), Nigeria (35), Cameroon (29), Mozambique (27), Uganda (21) while Kenya had the lowest decline at 16 percent.
Dr Choto, however, commended the country’s condom distribution strategy noting it was largely contributing to the decline of new infections in the country.
“Zimbabwe has high levels of condom use especially among non-regular partners, the success of the programme is attributed to effective partnerships across different levels of the intervention, and however the main challenges to date are the low uptake of female condoms and low condom use in long term relationships.
“Further a substantial increase in the number of pregnant women and people above 15 years tested for HIV and the Provider-Initiated Testing and Counselling approach offered at public institutions contributed to this positive reduction in new infections,” said Dr Choto.
He also noted that the country had recorded a significant reduction in Parent To Child Transmission rate from 30 percent in 2009 to 5,5 percent in 2014.
According to the UNAids report 19 million of the 35 million people living with HIV globally do not know their HIV-positive status.
Aids related deaths have declined by 57 percent in the country.
The United Nations body said there was strong progress by Zimbabwe in scaling up treatment access as featured in the report with the country contributing five percent of the global total of people newly accessing antiretroviral therapy between 2010 and 2013.
The report was released in advance of the International Aids conference which starts in Melbourne, Australia on 20 July.
