Online Reporter
Rumbidzayi Zinyuke-Senior Reporter
NEW HIV infections among young people in Harare have declined by 30 percent, with intensified community-based programmes and increased uptake of HIV prevention services beginning to yield positive results.
The decline, recorded in the second quarter compared with the corresponding period last year, comes as the National Aids Council and its partners intensify interventions targeting young people, who remain an important population in the country’s HIV response.
NAC Harare provincial manager, Mr Adonijah Muzondiona, said the reduction demonstrated that targeted programming was beginning to bear fruit.
“I think we are seeing some developments on the side of our youths, whereby we actually reported a 30 percent reduction in new infections as compared to last quarter and last year. We are saying these programmes, the interventions that we are actually doing, are actually bearing fruit,” he said.
The progress comes alongside a decline in reported sexually transmitted infections (STIs), particularly among young people aged between 15 and 20.
Mr Muzondiona said the number of STI cases recorded in the province had also started to decline following intensified awareness, testing and treatment programmes.
“This quarter I think they have gone down to below 2 000, which is slightly down from the previous quarter. We used to have 2 000 to 3 000 cases a quarter. This was not a good thing for a province like Harare,” he said.
The reduction follows a period when reported STIs, particularly among young people, had been increasing, prompting intensified targeted interventions.
Mr Muzondiona said the earlier increase in reported STIs was partly a result of successful awareness campaigns that were encouraging more young people to come forward for testing and treatment.
However, he said the increase in reported cases should also be viewed in the context of improved access to services, with more young people now being reached through community outreach programmes, clinics and mobile health services.
“We previously recorded a surge of sexually transmitted infections across all ages. But the ages between 15 and 20 seemed to have a lion’s share of the new infections of STIs. These new infections were a result of our programming activities. We are now targeting correctly. We are going down to the communities, to the district, targeting these young people because our research has actually indicated that new infections of HIV are now coming; more of them are coming from these young people,” he said.
NAC has been using youth-focused initiatives including Sister-to-Sister, Brother-to-Brother and DREAMS, alongside community outreach activities, to increase awareness and encourage young people to access HIV and STI services.
Mr Muzondiona said the programmes were helping to take services closer to young people while creating platforms where they could access information and support from their peers.
“We also go out there into the outreach to make sure that we mobilise the population, especially the young people, so that they come for services. And now the reporting has gone up because more of the youths have been given awareness and they are coming for services, they are coming to clinics, they are coming to mobile clinics, and we are now reporting more,” he said.
Prevention messages continue to emphasise abstinence, condom use and being faithful to one partner, with NAC also promoting age-appropriate relationships.
NAC is also engaging older men as part of efforts to address relationships between older men and adolescent girls, which can increase young people’s vulnerability to HIV and other STIs.
“We have actually decided to have a programme which is now targeting these older men so that at least we can try and dissuade them from actually following these young people,” he said.
Mr Muzondiona said the latest progress had encouraged NAC to sustain and expand its interventions across Harare Province, which has a large young population.
“We want to continue to make sure that the youth of Harare, where we have the highest number of youth by population in the Harare metropolitan province, we want to make sure that they are saved in every corner where they are and we reduce new STIs; we continue to reduce new HIV and AIDS,” he said.
