Zimbabwe HIV+ pregnant women number among world highest
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Loading... - Grace Githinji
- 01 Aug 2022
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Zimbabwe has been ranked one of the 22 countries with the highest burden of pregnant women living with HIV.
This is despite the country having made major strides in testing and preventing the virus which caused havoc in the 1990s and early 2000s.
As a result, the Health ministry has introduced a programme to eliminate HIV transmission from positive mothers to children through medication.
Health and Child Care ministry director for the Aids and TB programme, Owen Mugurungi told NewsDay that the Health ministry is working on ensuring that HIV transmission from mothers to babies is eliminated.
"As a ministry we have an ambitious programme to eliminate mother to child HIV-transmission (EMTCT) from an HIV-positive woman to their babies. According to Zimphia (Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment) 2029 infection rates among women of reproductive age continue to decline as the rate of new mother to child infections have reduced from 0,5% in 2016 to 0,44% in 2020, and it further reduced to 8% from the 11% in 2010. With the EMTCT programme, we aim to reduce it further from 8% to less than 5% by 2025", Mugurungi said.
HIV infections among young women can also be reduced by making sure that all pregnant women have access to HIV testing to help detect the virus early and ensure that those who are infected have access to anti-retroviral drugs (ART).
Mugurungi said children born of HIV- positive women would receive diagnosis at birth to determine whether they acquired HIV infection or not, and if they did, they were treated early. Read More…
