News / Health
'More men die of HIV than women'
13 Mar 2013 at 07:10hrs | Views
MORE men die of HIV compared to women although more women are infected by the disease, a senior official has said.
Speaking to journalists at a media briefing held in Harare recently, monitoring and evaluation director with the National Aids Council Mr Amon Mpofu attributed the disparity to a delay by men to visit health institutions, inconsistent treatment uptake due to excessive alcohol consumption and smoking among other reasons.
About 1,1 million in Zimbabwe are estimated to be living with HIV and Aids and almost 60 percent of these are women.
According to statistics from the Nac, about 207 765 females are on anti-retrorival drugs against 118 476 males.
"Machismo affects most men in the country. Men do not seek health services unless they are extremely ill," Mr Mpofu said.
He said more women were more willing to get tested for HIV than males.
Mr Mpofu said when on treatment, most men go through treatment failure compared to women because some of them drink alcohol excessively, which could interfere with treatment and adherence.
"These could be some of the factors contributing to more men dying from HIV-related illnesses yet more women are living with the virus," Mr Mpofu said.
Although more men die of HIV than women, generally, the number of HIV-related deaths in Zimbabwe has gone down from the previous average of 3 000.
Of late, an average of 1 000 deaths occur per week. The new HIV infection rate has also declined from an annual average of 66 000 to 44 000.
The decrease has since been attributed to widespread anti-retroviral treatment (ART) programmes that Government has rolled out since 2004.
Meanwhile, a recent study conducted in Mutoko proved that men were willing to be tested for HIV but because of geographical locations of the testing centres few end up taking the test.
Presenting study results in Harare yesterday, the principal investigator in the study Mr Alfred Chingono said after taking voluntary and counselling test sites into communities in and around Mutoko, increased uptake of HIV testing by 45 percent in men and 15 percent in women was recorded.
Mr Chingono from the UZ-USFC said their study called Accept, could contribute modest reductions of HIV if implemented throughout the country.
"We found out that Project Accept was safe and effective as it increased the rate of HIV testing especially among men and increased HIV detection," he said.
The study was run in Zimbabwe, Thailand, Tanzania and South Africa.
"These study results clearly demonstrate that high rates of testing can be achieved by going into communities and that this strategy can result in increased HIV detection which makes referral care possible," he said.
Speaking to journalists at a media briefing held in Harare recently, monitoring and evaluation director with the National Aids Council Mr Amon Mpofu attributed the disparity to a delay by men to visit health institutions, inconsistent treatment uptake due to excessive alcohol consumption and smoking among other reasons.
About 1,1 million in Zimbabwe are estimated to be living with HIV and Aids and almost 60 percent of these are women.
According to statistics from the Nac, about 207 765 females are on anti-retrorival drugs against 118 476 males.
"Machismo affects most men in the country. Men do not seek health services unless they are extremely ill," Mr Mpofu said.
He said more women were more willing to get tested for HIV than males.
Mr Mpofu said when on treatment, most men go through treatment failure compared to women because some of them drink alcohol excessively, which could interfere with treatment and adherence.
"These could be some of the factors contributing to more men dying from HIV-related illnesses yet more women are living with the virus," Mr Mpofu said.
Of late, an average of 1 000 deaths occur per week. The new HIV infection rate has also declined from an annual average of 66 000 to 44 000.
The decrease has since been attributed to widespread anti-retroviral treatment (ART) programmes that Government has rolled out since 2004.
Meanwhile, a recent study conducted in Mutoko proved that men were willing to be tested for HIV but because of geographical locations of the testing centres few end up taking the test.
Presenting study results in Harare yesterday, the principal investigator in the study Mr Alfred Chingono said after taking voluntary and counselling test sites into communities in and around Mutoko, increased uptake of HIV testing by 45 percent in men and 15 percent in women was recorded.
Mr Chingono from the UZ-USFC said their study called Accept, could contribute modest reductions of HIV if implemented throughout the country.
"We found out that Project Accept was safe and effective as it increased the rate of HIV testing especially among men and increased HIV detection," he said.
The study was run in Zimbabwe, Thailand, Tanzania and South Africa.
"These study results clearly demonstrate that high rates of testing can be achieved by going into communities and that this strategy can result in increased HIV detection which makes referral care possible," he said.
Source - herald
