Midlands province managed to initiate 978 children on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) against a target of 3 000 last year because of a shortage of paediatric services, a top official in the Health ministry has said.
BY Stephen Chadenga
The provincial focal person in the Health and Child Care ministry in charge of sexually transmitted infections, HIV and Aids and tuberculosis, Gladys Takawira, said the province only had 23 sites providing ART to children, a figure she said fell short of meeting the province’s requirements.
Takawira said there was need to decentralise paediatric ARV therapy services to all districts in the province.
“The province managed to commence 978 children on ART with a set target of 3 000, which is only 32,6% of the target,” Takawira said while addressing guests at a National Aids Council (NAC) provincial stakeholders’ meeting in Gweru recently.
“There are only 23 out of 231 facilities in the province offering paediatric ART services. There is need to train more health care workers on paediatric ART to enable decentralisation of the services.”
Data from NAC shows that districts such as Gweru and Gokwe have four sites each, Chirumanzu and Mberengwa three each, while Kwekwe, Shurugwi, Zvishavane and Gokwe North have two each.
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According to UNAids, over two million children under the age of 15 were living with HIV and Aids in the world and 80% of them were believed to be in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Zimbabwe, estimates were that less than 50% of children eligible for ART were getting the treatment and care compared to 85% adults.
