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Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Only 1 out of the 9 state tertiary institution in Zimbabwe is providing comprehensive HIV-AIDS services to students at a time when around 4-5% of tertiary students are suffering from HIV related complications and are in regular need of such services.

The other institutions are offering either one or none of the required services.

Only one state university provides Anti-Retroviral Treatment at the campus whilst for the Polytechnics none provides any AIDS testing or counseling services.

For the vocational training centres only 2 out of 7 provide AIDS testing and counseling.

This is revealed in a research study, titled The Unmet Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Students Living with HIV in Zimbabwe’s Tertiary Institutions, conducted by Say What, a non-governmental organisation which focuses on students and youths.

Sandisi Ndlovu, the Director of the research study said with university’s accommodating approximately 19-20 thousand people and Polytechnics accommodating 3-5 thousand there is need for rapid
action.

“Currently they are no clear strategies on how to deal with them as they are still disparities in certain regulations which also hinder the smooth transition to the provision of these services’

“For example most of the college clinics don’t fall under the Ministry of Health and Child Care but under the Ministry of Education, so in most programmes done by the Health Ministry, they are left out as the parent Ministry is already overwhelmed”, he said.

Ndlovu said in the last three months 20 percent of the university students have visited campus clinics in need of condoms whilst 67 percent have gone for AIDS related services.

“This at lease shows an awareness and the need for safety by them and is it’s a commendable picture”, he said.

Universities have gained a bad reputation as places of promiscuity with many stories coming out in the media. This has raised fears for the re-emergence of increased new infections at a time the government is fighting to end the epidemic by 2030.

According to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2010-2011, the country continues to experience one of the worst HIV infections rate in Sub-Sharan Africa though there is a notable progress to date.

Heterosexual contact accounts for 92 percent of modes of transmission, the second being the transmission of the virus through mother to child during pregnancy, child birth and breast feeding.

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