The rights of people living with HIV (PLHIV) are severely being compromised as the country lags behind its neighbours in terms of treatment, care and support, the Zimbabwe National Network for People Living with HIV/Aids (ZNNP+) has said.
BY MUNESU NYAKUDYA
ZNNP+ said PLHIV were concerned by the lack of access to diagnostic services, specifically CD 4 and viral load machines.
“While the Zimbabwe National Aids Strategic Plan (ZNASP 3) places rights as a guiding principle for the response to HIV, the reality is that the rights of people living with HIV are severely compromised and Zimbabwe stands way behind its neighbours in the region in terms of treatment, care and support available to PLHIV,” ZNNP+ said in a statement.
“To date, the country has got limited numbers of viral load machines such that some blood samples have to be taken to neighbouring countries such as South Africa where results take long to come back.”
ZNNP+ also said PLHIV have to travel in excess of 200km to access viral load services, forking out an average of $15 – $20 per return trip.
“To aggravate the problem, the results are not collected on the same day, implying PLHIV has to make at least two trips. These machines are centralised at provincial and central hospitals, with some of them having constant break downs. In addition, each machine has a capacity to serve a minimum number of people per day translating to just few people accessing the service per given time.
“We, therefore, urge the Ministry of Health to increase the number of viral load machines through decentralisation to all the districts, reduce time frame to access viral load results, reduce discrimination by reverting the criteria of accessing the viral service and promote resource mobilisation,” added the statement.
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ZNNP+ also urged the Health and Finance ministries to prioritise health care financing through the fiscus in line with the Abuja Declaration for the attainment of the 90-90-90 targets by 2020.
Access to viral load counting is critical to realisation of the 3rd 90 of the 90-90-90 targets, to ensure 90% of ‘PLHIV have viral suppression.
Conservative figures indicate that the national coverage for viral load access stands at 5%.
