A SENIOR government official has revealed that although the voluntary male circumcision programme campaign had increased awareness on men’s sexual reproductive health issues, they were yet to establish the impact it has had on reducing the HIV infection rate.
PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI/FELUNA NLEYA
Health and Child Care ministry head of the Aids and Tuberculosis Unit Owen Mugurungi told NewsDay yesterday that they were, however, stressing the importance of abstinence, faithfulness to one sexual partner and the use of condoms in the fight against HIV and Aids.
“We also discuss the importance of HIV counselling and testing, early diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), correct and consistent use of male or female condoms and also the importance of being faithful to one sexual partner,” Mugurungi said.
He said 112 869 men went under the knife in 2013, bringing the total number of circumcisions since May 2009 to 204 310.
“The programme is indeed growing and we are very optimistic that we will continue to grow until we have reached a minimum of 80% of the adolescent and adult male population in Zimbabwe,” he said.
The ministry’s target was to circumcise 1,3 million males by 2017.
Meanwhile, National Aids Council provincial co-ordinator for Harare Adonija Muzondiona said the council was carrying out research to establish the reasons why people were not using condoms when the council was distributing over 1 million quarterly.
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“We have actually started looking at the problem on why there is a so much high sexual infection rate when there are many condoms being distributed,” Muzondiona said.
“So we are carrying out some research in the province and we have isolated districts which are major like the Western district.”
He, however, observed that lack of information on how to properly use condoms could be a factor after they recorded an average of 15 000 new STI cases and 2 000 repeat cases in the fourth quarter of 2013.
He said genital ulcers and gonorrhea were the top STIs which were recorded over the past year.
