UN hails Zim in fight against HIV

Tapiwa Mutizamhepo Herald Reporter
The United Nations has commended Zimbabwe for making great strides towards elimination of stigma and provision of quality treatment towards people living with HIV and AIDS, amid concerns of high prevalence rate infections in youth.

Addressing journalists during a media breakfast meeting in Harare yesterday, outgoing UN Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Bishow Parajuli, said the country was one of the few that put in place sustainable measures to tackle HIV and AIDS.

“I think the fundamental gain Zimbabwe has made on the HIV and AIDS issue is eliminating stigma and the whole issue of treatment and use of appropriate preventive measures, be it condoms, abstaining and sticking to one faithful partner,” he said.

“It is important to invest in these preventive measures. However, in my view, there should be a huge effort to educate younger generations on these issues, a lot of them may not be aware of the things or are misguided and end up getting infected.”

Ambassador Parajuli said greater effort should be invested towards improving social related services, as many of them were push factors where people ended up engaging in risky behaviour, leading to new infections.

“While transforming the economy, we must protect the poor and the vulnerable, we must not cut down investment on the most crucial sectors such as education and health,” he said.  “Sometimes when you have poverty and hunger and economic challenges, some people are forced to take steps which can put them into real risk of getting in new infections.

“So, protecting and safeguarding them is really important and as the UN we are looking into all these important steps to work with Government towards addressing such issues.