'HIV/AIDS still high among prostitutes'

The National AIDS Council (NAC) says cases of HIV and AIDS remain very high among commercial sex workers and adolescents, hence the need to scale up intervention programmes among these groups if the country is to meet its 2030 targets.

This came out during a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care workshop held in Beitbridge recently.

While the country has made significant strides in meeting global targets of reducing new sexual infections by 2015 and reducing the HIV and AIDS prevalence rate to 13.7 percent, incidents of the disease are still high among commercial sex workers and adolescents.

NAC monitoring and evaluation director Amon Mpofu says with the HIV and AIDS prevalence rate among commercial sex works standing at 56.4 percent, there is an urgent need for government and its partners to increase HIV and AIDS services to this group in order to curb new infections.

The chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care Dr Ruth Labode noted that while considerable progress has been recorded in the national response to HIV and AIDS, limited domestic funding for the health sector is a cause for concern.

The three-day workshop that was organised by NAC also gave the lawmakers an opportunity to embark on a field tour to get a hands on appreciation of the progress and challenges in the national response to HIV and AIDS in the Beitbridge district.