Godfrey Tembo
Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South) –
Government through the Ministry of Health and Child Care(MoHCC) has launched a new HIV Testing Services Strategy which is expected to augment the fight to reduce new HIV infections and test more people.
The programme which was launched in Bulawayo on Friday under the theme “closing the tap of new HIV infections” will run from 2017 to 2020.
The strategy unlike previous ones has targets such as the need to test 10,5 million people so as to raise the number of people aware of their status to 90%.
The 2017 to 2020 strategy will also target groups that have previously been left behind and come up wth innovative ways to include them.
These include key populations such as sex workers and truck drivers.
Speaking at the launch, in a speech read on his behalf by Bulawayo Provincial Minister of state Eunice Sandi Moyo, the Minister of Health and Child Care Dr David Parirenyatwa said the strategy comes at an opportune time for the country which has made significant strides in reducing Aids prevalence.
“This launch is coming in at such an opportune time when the Ministry of Health and Child Care has just recently hosted a very successful regional meeting on the Revitalisation of HIV prevention”
“Our current HIV prevalence rate is estimated at 13.7% down from 29% in 1999, though we still remain among the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world”, he said.
Parirenyatwa said approximately 1.3 million people are currently living with HIV and 86 000 of those are children.
The reduction in the country’s prevalence has also resulted in marked improvements in the health of people living with HIV increasing life expectancy to 58 years compared to life expectancy of 43 years in 2005.
Zimbabwe however remains inundated with a high disease burden of tuberculosis and in 2009 was ranked 17th among the 22 high burden countries in the world.
TB prevalence is estimated at 633/100 000 with an estimated 80% of TB cases being co-infected with HIV.
The minister said the country needs to remain vigilant despite the positive improvements.
“The Ministry has always pushed for prevention and I’m confident that this will have an impact on HIV prevention, ” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
He however said that the strategy requires $3 million which will be over the five years of the programme.
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