By Nathan Guma
ALTHOUGH the United Nations is eyeing an end to AIDS this decade, a report has identified youths as the most affected by the pandemic accounting for at least 4 000 new infections each week across the region, raising calls for an increase in funding in the health sector.
This comes when the region is racing towards attaining the goals of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan 2020-2030 (RISDP), which seeks to decrease the number of HIV/AIDS infections for socio-economic development.
According to a presentation by research consultant Rangarirai Machemedze at the 4th Regional Dialogue for Non-State Actors held in Harare, youths have remained the most affected by HIV/AIDS in the region.
“The 2024 UNAIDS report indicates that whilst the end of AIDS is within our grasp this decade, gender inequality is exacerbating the risks faced by girls and women and driving the pandemic. Youths remain the most affected, with 4 000 new infections each week,” he said in his presentation.
“HIV incidence among adolescent girls and young women is still extraordinarily high in parts of eastern and southern Africa and western and central Africa. There has been in reducing HIV/AIDS prevalence, with cases dropping from 868 000 in 2010 to 413 600 in 2022. Between 2010 and 2022, AIDS-related deaths declined by 65%, and new HIV infections decreased by 57%.”
According to the research, while regional expenditure on HIV increased by US$35.5 million, reaching US$4.54 billion, most countries still need support.
“No country in SADC provides universal health care. Access to essential health services ranges from a score of 71 in Seychelles to 35 in Madagascar,” he said.
“The HIV Fund continues to aid the regional response, with Round 3 funding underway. It will support 13 critical projects across all SADC Member States to help end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The region continues to suffer from a huge disease burden.
“For example, the chronic challenges of TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS. There is a huge increase in non-communicable diseases (heart, HBP, cancer) especially in children. Cholera outbreak since the first quarter of 2023, exacerbated by drought-induced use of unsafe water.”
Machemedze said this has also been worsened by the regional government’s failure to allocate adequate funds towards preventive services, compared to other government sectors.
“Despite SADC member states’; commitments to the Abuja Declaration to allocate at least 15% of the budget to the health sector, there are still huge gaps in healthcare financing. The problem of allocating inadequate budgets to health is made worse by the fact that most countries are not spending their full health budgets due to persisting inefficiencies in their public finance management (PFM) systems and weak capacities,” he said.
“It is difficult for countries to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) when they allocate less than 4-5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to health.”
The fight against HIV has been ongoing, with Botswana, Eswatini, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe reaching 95-95-95 UNAIDS HIV testing, treatment, and viral suppression targets.
According to the targets, an initiative of the UNAIDS 95% of people living with HIV should be diagnosed, 95% of those diagnosed with HIV should be receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 95% of all those receiving ART should achieve viral suppression (VLS).
This would result in 85% of all PLHIV with viral load suppression, helping to reduce HIV transmission and mortality.
There has also been a significant decrease in AIDS-related deaths, with official statistics by the National Aids Council (NAC) showing that 19 566 people died of Aids in Zimbabwe last year, a drop from 23 427 recorded in 2020.
In total, as of the end of last year, a total of 1.3 million people were recorded as living with HIV.
Of that figure, 520 720 are male and 782 585, are female. A total of 82 711 of these are adolescents aged between 10 and 19 years.
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