WHILE Zimbabwe has made great strides in combating the HIV and Aids pandemic, advocacy groups at a workshop in Kadoma on Friday said 40% of children born HIV positive were not yet initiated into anti-retroviral drug treatment (ART).
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
The HIV and Aids activists disclosed this during an advocacy meeting convened by the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP+).
ZNNP+ executive director, Muchanyara Mukamuri told journalists that to make matters worse, there were still other problems such as the release of “dry sample” results, with some “getting lost altogether”.
“We are lagging behind in the implementation of paediatric ART, with just about 40% of children born with the HIV and Aids condition being initiated onto treatment. This is against figures of about 78% for adults,” she said.
“There is need to strengthen programmes that target not only infants, but also adolescents, particularly those born with the disease, but this should be done before we introduce ART.”
Mukamuri said the country’s push for an Aids free generation was under threat.
She said social dynamics could also be at the centre of the unwillingness on the part of lactating mothers to have their children initiated.
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“For some funny reason that is yet to be really investigated, most mothers do not want to have their children initiated even though they are on ART themselves. It could be that they find it difficult to broach the news that they have given birth to an infected child to their spouses,” Mukamuri said.
She said with only three centres receiving “dry blood samples” to test children born to HIV positive mothers, problems have arisen in the value chain relating to the availability of the results.
“Authorities have resorted to releasing results over the phone because some have been mixed up, while others have been lost along the way, and that is if they are available in the first place,” Mukamuri said.
“We only have three places in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare and that has presented major problems for mothers and health practitioners.”
HIV and Aids activists, who spoke at the meeting, brought up a new dynamic, particularly in relation to adolescents, accusing police of being turned into drug conduits.
“Police, especially here in Kadoma, raid drug lords, but then use their spouses to flood the market with the drugs again, particularly Broncleer, [a highly intoxicating cough syrup reportedly being smuggled into the country from neighbouring South Africa],” an activist said on condition they were not identified.
“After taking these drugs these youths engage in unprotected sex orgies at parties in town.
“The police are also scared to go into illegal mining areas, where there is rampant abuse and trade in these drugs, as well as immoral activities that are helping with the spread of HIV and Aids”.
Mashonaland West police provincial spokesperson, Inspector Clemence Mabgweazara said he would need to investigate this.
“I do not have such facts at hand and would need to establish what is happening. I am currently at the Harare Agricultural Show,” Mabgweazara said yesterday.
