NAC’s HIV symposium spotlights children

By Kuda Pembere

The National HIV Symposium kicked off on a high note with the focus hinged on pediatric and adolescent HIV issues bedeviling Zimbabwe.

The symposium organized by the National AIDS Council was themed “Accelerating 95-95-95 HIV Targets Among Children”.

Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora in a speech read on his behalf by Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals chief medical officer Dr Tsitsi Magure said the much-yearned goal to end AIDS by 2030 is an impossible feat if children’s treatment coverage lags behind.

“Our national response can only improve when we subject specific programmes to scrutiny. As such, the majority of the operational research studies on the programme over the next two days are focused on specific issues of importance to effective implementation and management of programmes on the ground.

“The theme this year, which says “Accelerating 95-95-95 HIV Targets Among Children” is intended to highlight the gaps that exist in the pursuit of these targets. Zimbabwe has already achieved 95-95-95 targets among adults but continues to lag behind among children,” said the Minister.

The National PMTCT and Pediatric HIV Care and Treatment Coordinator in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Angela Mushavi said the HIV response situation is displeasing when it comes to the children’s indicators.

“But it reminds me a little bit about our own approach to children in the African culture, where if you slaughter a roadrunner for the guest, what do the children get? They get their feet, their heads, their insides. And who gets the choicest bits? That’s exactly what we are doing for our children. And I like this theme because it is putting children at the center of our HIV response in this country,” she said.

She noted that the issue of advanced HIV is still a thorn in the flesh as deaths are still occurring.

“I have some figures for Zimbabwe. I think out of the 15 million people living in Zimbabwe, Zimbabweans, 15 million according to our census, we have 1.3 million people that are living with HIV. And of which a significant number, I think if you put a figure of 69, 70,000 being children, that’s to me not insignificant.”

She added that the ART coverage for children was still low.

“It’s 3% of the total number of people living with HIV in our country and it’s not acceptable. We have seen, I think as you can see on the slide, the ART coverage for adults, very impressive, 96.5% in 2023. But look at that coverage for children sitting at 63%. I think that is not acceptable,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of NAC Chief executive officer Dr Bernard Madzima was the organization’s Monitoring and Evaluation Director Mr Amon Mpofu who said it was necessary to adopt and use evidence driven information and strategies to guarantee the country ends AIDS by 2030.
“As NAC, we highly value the use of evidence from each generation to utilisation to inform decision making, both at policy and programme levels.

“The path to ending AIDS by 2030 now highly requires use of evidence and strategic information to optimise the response and move away from one-size-fits-all interventions to people and geographic-specific interventions whose effectiveness has been proven.

“As the coordinator of the national response to HIV, we are fully aware that evidence and strategic information are part of our broader mandate and to ensure that we use this evidence,” Dr Madzima said.

Dr Madzima added that they worked with other research institutes for this symposium.

“These include the HIV and AIDS research priorities. I hope you have seen and are making use of the HIV-AIDS research database, the HIV-AIDS research support grants and this platform to disseminate the findings.
“Once again, the National AIDS Council is collaborating with the Minister of Health and Child Care, the Biomedical Research and Training Institute BRTI, the University of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Health Interventions (ZHI) and CeSHHAR to bring this symposium to you,” he said adding they received researches from Botswana.

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