New HIV infections among young people in Harare have declined by 30 percent, with intensified community outreach, awareness campaigns and increased uptake of prevention services beginning to deliver positive results.
The decline, recorded during the second quarter compared with the corresponding period last year, has been welcomed by the National AIDS Council (NAC), which says targeted interventions are helping to reach young people in communities where they live and access services.
NAC Harare provincial manager Adonijah Muzondiona said the latest figures were an indication that youth-focused programmes were beginning to produce tangible results.
“I think we are seeing some developments on the side of our youths, whereby we actually reported a 30 percent reduction in new infections as compared to last quarter and last year. We are saying these programmes, the interventions that we are actually doing, are actually bearing fruit,” he said.
The positive trend has also been accompanied by a reduction in reported sexually transmitted infections (STIs), particularly among young people aged between 15 and 20.
Muzondiona said reported STI cases in the province had fallen to below 2 000 during the quarter, compared with between 2 000 and 3 000 cases recorded in previous quarters.
“This quarter I think they have gone down to below 2 000, which is slightly down from the previous quarter. We used to have 2 000 to 3 000 cases a quarter. This was not a good thing for a province like Harare,” he said.
He explained that the previous increase in reported STI cases was partly linked to successful awareness campaigns, which encouraged more young people to seek testing and treatment.
The increase in reported cases, therefore, did not necessarily indicate a worsening situation, as improved access to health services meant more infections were being identified and treated.
“We previously recorded a surge of sexually transmitted infections across all ages. But the ages between 15 and 20 seemed to have a lion’s share of the new infections of STIs,” Muzondiona said.
He said NAC was now taking services directly into communities and districts to ensure young people could access information, testing, treatment and prevention support.
Youth-focused initiatives such as Sister-to-Sister, Brother-to-Brother and DREAMS are being used alongside community outreach, clinics and mobile health services to strengthen the HIV response.
“We also go out there into the outreach to make sure that we mobilise the population, especially the young people, so that they come for services,” he said.
Prevention campaigns continue to promote abstinence, correct and consistent condom use and faithfulness to one partner, while also encouraging age-appropriate relationships.
NAC is also targeting older men to address relationships involving older men and adolescent girls, which can increase vulnerability to HIV and other STIs.
“We have actually decided to have a programme which is now targeting these older men so that at least we can try and dissuade them from actually following these young people,” Muzondiona said.
He said NAC would sustain and expand the interventions across Harare Province, which has a large youth population.
“We want to continue to make sure that the youth of Harare, where we have the highest number of youth by population in the Harare metropolitan province, we want to make sure that they are saved in every corner where they are and we reduce new STIs; we continue to reduce new HIV and AIDS,” he said.
The latest decline highlights the importance of sustained prevention, early testing and community-based interventions in protecting young people and reducing new HIV and STI infections.
