The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
HARARE has the highest number of people living with HIV in the country while at least one in five people in Bubi District has the virus, a new global study has shown.
The study by Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research centre at the University of Washington sponsored by the Bill & Mellinda Gates Foundation targeted people between the ages of 15-49.
The research is part of the Local Burden of Disease project at IHME led by Dr Simon I Hay, Director of Geospatial Science at IHME and Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington.
The study by IHME, which tried to break down the number of people living with HIV across 46 African countries to help policymakers focus their efforts on fighting the epidemic, found that as many as 203 000 in the capital were living with the virus. In Bulawayo, the study showed that as many as 75 000 people had the illness.
“In 2017, the highest estimated HIV prevalence at the second administrative level in Zimbabwe was 21,5 percent in Bubi District. The lowest prevalence was 10,0 percent in Gokwe North District. The study found that the largest number of people aged 15-49 living with HIV (PLHIV) reside in Harare District,” the study said.
However, the study also found that the number of people living with HIV in Metropolitan areas like Harare and Johannesburg (South Africa) might be due to the fact that people were living longer because of access to antiretroviral therapy (ART).
While HIV prevalence was in decline in some parts of Zimbabwe, it was on the rise in others.
“Prevalence declined by 14,3 percentage points (10,3–18,2 percentage points) in Chegutu District in Zimbabwe, whereas it increased by 0,6 percentage points (4.1 to 5.0 percentage points) in Beitbridge district,” the study noted.
The study also found that Zimbabwe’s HIV prevalence rate stood at 13,5 percent placing it higher than other African countries like Mozambique (11.9 percent), Kenya (5,6 percent) and Nigeria (three percent) but lower than Namibia (13,8 percent) and South Africa (17 percent). Despite declining HIV prevalence figures, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were still lagging behind their continental counterparts in the fight to eradicate the illness.
“There was a clear divide between countries in southern sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe), where estimated HIV prevalence exceeded 10 percent in 2017 and the rest of the continent, where prevalence was generally much lower,” the study showed.
Despite the spirited fight to combat the problem, HIV is still the number one killer in Zimbabwe between the years 2007 and 2017 followed by Tuberculosis, Lower Respiratory Infections, Neonatal Disorders and Ischemic heart diseases.
However in those 10 years the number of HIV/Aids related deaths had been reduced by as much as 83,3 percent while the mortality rate has risen from the 2004-5 low of 46 for females to just 64. For males it rose from 44 to 58.
