By Nontobeko Sibanda
THE National Aids Council (NAC) recently held a stakeholders’ meeting at a Gwanda hotel to review
programme successes, challenges and how best to achieve their intended goals.
NAC hosted the meeting in a bid to also assess the 2025 goal of eradicating HIV and AIDS as the
country seeks to attain 95, 95 and 95.
These are 95 percent of the population should know their HIV status, 95 percent of HIV positive to
be on Anti-retroviral and 95 percent on ART to have viral load suppression.
Stakeholders present were DREAMS, Ministry of Health and Child Care and Plan International,
among others.
Matabeleland South NAC provincial manager, Isiah Aburen, brought to light the action points of
National AIDS Council and the solutions to points raised, that are the low uptake of female condoms,
which is attributed to emanate from cultural beliefs, late reporting of gender-based violence, high
HIV and AIDS prevalence in Bulilima and Mangwe district, women not adhering to ART when
pregnant and also soaring rate of child marriages.
NAC monitoring and evaluation director, Amon Mpofu, said Mangwe and Bulilima District has a high
HIV prevalence rate, whose cause is yet to be established.
He added that statistics showed that societies were violent towards vulnerable children as 169
children were found to be sexually abused in Matabeleland South Province.
The society is continuing to harm the vulnerable children, which is surprising as 169 children are
found to be sexually abused in Matabeleland South this year alone said Mpofu.
DREAMS represented by Paul Macheka, said discoveries of high rate of school dropouts in Mangwe
area was worrying and added that they had initiated projects in the community to empower the
dropouts.
A Ministry of Health and Child Care official said the low uptake of third dose of Covid-19 vaccines
was worrying and said programmes to encourage people to get vaccines to achieve herd immunity
should continue.
