ENDING Aids requires the reach and the engagement of everyone who is living with and at the risk of getting infected with HIV, Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution minister Misheck Mugadza has said.
He was speaking during the launch of the World Aids Day theme and logo in Rusape yesterday.
This year’s theme is Take the Rights Path: My Health, My Rights, Our Responsibility.
Mugadza said the logo seeks to give an identity to this theme and serve as a guide to the aspirations and interventions towards ending Aids by 2030.
“The theme highlights the importance of human rights in ending Aids, promoting inclusion and eradicating stigma. It calls on policy makers and citizens to address the inequalities that hinder progress in ending Aids,” he said.
He said the theme aims to end Aids as a public health threat by 2030 as well as to protect the rights of everyone living with and at risk of HIV.
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Mugadza also said there was a need to include people who have been most excluded and marginalised, as the theme says.
“It’s the duty of every individual to access health services and everyone’s responsibility to ensure that there is an enabling environment for people to access health services,” he said.
“As a country, we are having challenges with paediatric HIV, so it is our duty ladies and gentlemen that we put the rights of our children first and responsibility to access health services for our children.”
The logo consists of a red ribbon, green square and a map of Zimbabwe.
“The red ribbon is the international symbol of HIV and Aids awareness. It stands for: Care and Concern: It is being worn by increasing numbers of people around the world to demonstrate their care and concern about HIV and Aids — for those who are living with HIV, for those who are ill, for those who have died and for those who care for and support those directly affected.”
“Hope: The red ribbon is intended to be a symbol of hope — that the search for a vaccine and cure to halt the suffering is successful and the quality of life improves for those living with the virus.”
“Support: The red ribbon offers symbolic support for those living with HIV, for the continuing education of those not infected, for maximum efforts to find effective treatments, cures or vaccines, and for those who have lost friends, family members or loved ones to Aids.”
He said the Zimbabwe map in the campaign logo shows that the campaign message is for Zimbabwe, while the green square emphasises the importance of life.
“After having done everything in the right way at the right time, we will be able to give our people more life,” Mugadza said.
In a speech read on his behalf by National Aids Council provincial manager Artwell Shiridzinomwa, chief executive officer Bernard Madzima said: “This year’s international theme is Take the Rights Paths. As a country, we work with the international theme and process through consultations with local communities here in Makoni to suit our local needs and situation hence our national theme is Take the Rights Path: My Health, My Rights, Our Responsibility."
The theme will run from December 1, 2024 to November 30. 2025.
All the World Aids Day campaigns focus on a specific theme, chosen following consultations with UNAids, the World Health Organisation and a large number of grassroots, national and international agencies involved in the prevention and treatment of HIV and Aids.
There is one theme internationally.