The Bulawayo City Council has raised a red flag over a critical shortage of condoms following the withdrawal of international donor funding, a situation that city fathers fear will worsen the spread of HIV in newly identified hotspots.
During a full council meeting on Wednesday, the health, housing and education committee tabled a report revealing that the suburbs of Pumula and Magwegwe have been flagged by the National Aids Council (NAC) as areas of high concern due to rising HIV cases.
Councillor Sikhululekile Moyo said the public must be alerted to the scarcity of preventative measures.
“Information on the shortages of condoms should also be shared and encouragements done for residents to practise safe sex especially sticking to one sexual partner,” the committee’s report said.
Moyo argued that residents should be encouraged to know their HIV status to make “sexually informed decisions” while the city grapples with these supply gaps.
Edwin Mzingwane Sibanda, council’s director of health services, confirmed to the committee severity of the situation, attributing the deficit to a major shift in international aid.
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“The condom supply decrease was the result of the withdrawal of donor funding such as the United States foreign health aid,” the report said.
Following his return to power last year, US President Donald Trump’s administration enacted massive cuts in foreign assistance, completely dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAid).
USAid financed most of Zimbabwe’s condom supply for several years and funded HIV prevention programmes, including distribution of free contraceptives and condoms.
Meanwhile, committee heard that the “mushrooming” of illegal night clubs in Magwegwe and Pumula is a primary factor in rising HIV infection rates.
Moyo criticised the conversion of licensed sports bars into unregulated night clubs, which she identified as a contributing factor to the spread of HIV.
Councillor Lazarus Mpadwe said “bush churches” and shrines in these areas had become vehicles for transmission, noting that activities in bushy areas often lead to “unprotected sexual contacts.”
Councillor Adrian Moyo described the current situation as a “wakeup call” for the city’s health systems, noting that previous support from NGOs like OPHID—which provided treatment, care, and incentives for community health workers—has changed.
To mitigate the crisis, Sibanda, the director of health, said more clinics would begin distributing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which remains funded by USAid.
However, councillors maintained that behavioral change is essential, stating that residents must continue “using condoms every time and correctly during intercourse” to stem the tide of new infections.