All is set for the International Conference on Aids and STIs in Africa (ICASA) which starts today in the capital.
A pre-event high level meeting for African First Ladies preceded the event in Victoria Falls to kick-start the regional event which is being held in Zimbabwe for the second time.
Zimbabwe hosted the ICASA in 2015.
Speaking in Victoria Falls on the sidelines of the high-level meeting, Health and Child Care minister Douglas Mombeshora expressed hope that the country's HIV response will be enriched through exchanges and collaborations during the conference.
“Zimbabwe adopted the multi-sectoral approach to the response to HIV, which has always put communities first in driving the response, providing leadership, financing, monitoring and holding government and stakeholders accountable.
“Putting communities first, my ministry will prioritise interventions aimed at further reducing new infections and reducing deaths among people living with HIV, and ensuring that we maintain the epidemic control phase we have achieved.
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“In doing this, we have to also increase attention to associated non-communicable diseases and improving quality of life for people living with HIV.
“We are all looking forward to an exciting next week as we host the International Aids Conference, from which our response will be enriched through exchanges and collaborations.”
Mombeshora said Zimbabwe was ready to host the conference and everything was in place for the event which starts today and ends on Saturday.
National Aids Council chief executive Bernard Madzima said the event came at a time when the country was upscaling efforts to end Aids by 2030.
“We have increased programming starting from the grassroots as we move towards the 2030 goals. As we host ICASA 2023, we look forward to getting more scientific interventions in that regard,” he said.
In his state of the nation address on the eve of World Aids Day on Thursday last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said hosting the event twice in a decade, coupled with the country’s achievements in the HIV and Aids sector, was a great achievement.
“This is a major milestone in our quest to ramp up Zimbabwe’s reclamation of its influential position in world affairs.
“The conference, which we are proud to host for the second time in nine years, is a major platform for sharing and exchanging cutting-edge evidence and lessons in the response to HIV and other epidemics afflicting our continent and the world.
“Additional to local research, we are proud to share lessons around our home-grown National Aids Trust Fund commonly known as the Aids Levy, for which Zimbabwe has been hailed as a trailblazer in domestic funding initiatives,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Society for Aids in Africa, said the conference would mainly focus on issues of preventing diseases such as cervical cancer amid a high level of negligence and laxity in screening and diagnosis, an official has said.
The conference is also expected to address issues to do with malaria, tuberculosis and other non-communicable diseases.
More than 3 000 delegates are expected to participate at the conference.