News / Local
Mugabe dragged into AIDS fight
28 Feb 2017 at 05:29hrs | Views
President Robert Mugabe has been urged to issue a decree compelling HIV testing to be compulsory for all citizens.
The Citizens Aids Survival Trust (Cast), a local Aids organization said Mugabe should use his executive powers as that might reduce the death and destruction of "an entire black human race in sub-Saharan Africa and Zimbabwe in particular".
In 2013, during a Sadc meeting in Malawi, Mugabe raised a storm when he openly suggested that the region should adopt forced HIV and Aids testing to curb the endemic.
According to media reports, a petition was signed last Friday indicating that the Constitution empowered Mugabe to curtail certain human liberties for the sole purpose of containing the spread of infectious, contagious and communicable diseases.
"The threat of destruction of our people is the biggest single matter of national interest. The right to safety and security from all manner of threats is enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe" the organisation's executive director, David Chiweza is quoted saying.
Zimbabwe's HIV prevalence rate declined from 15, 7 percent in 2011 to 13, 8 in 2015 on the back of various Government strategies, the latest Global Aids Progress Report has revealed.
The strategies include early adoption and implementation of 2013 World Health Organisation guidelines on treatment and prevention, male circumcision, Tuberculosis/HIV collaborative treatment and prevention of mother to child HIV transmission.
According to the 2015 UNAids Report, Zimbabwe accounted for four percent of all Aids-related deaths in 2013, even though its domestic figures show a decline of 57 percent between 2005 and 2013.
The number of HIV-related deaths in Zimbabwe also declined from 76 934 in 2011 to 63 853 in 2013, and new infections dropped from 85 724 in 2011 to 69 105 in 2013.
The Citizens Aids Survival Trust (Cast), a local Aids organization said Mugabe should use his executive powers as that might reduce the death and destruction of "an entire black human race in sub-Saharan Africa and Zimbabwe in particular".
In 2013, during a Sadc meeting in Malawi, Mugabe raised a storm when he openly suggested that the region should adopt forced HIV and Aids testing to curb the endemic.
According to media reports, a petition was signed last Friday indicating that the Constitution empowered Mugabe to curtail certain human liberties for the sole purpose of containing the spread of infectious, contagious and communicable diseases.
"The threat of destruction of our people is the biggest single matter of national interest. The right to safety and security from all manner of threats is enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe" the organisation's executive director, David Chiweza is quoted saying.
Zimbabwe's HIV prevalence rate declined from 15, 7 percent in 2011 to 13, 8 in 2015 on the back of various Government strategies, the latest Global Aids Progress Report has revealed.
The strategies include early adoption and implementation of 2013 World Health Organisation guidelines on treatment and prevention, male circumcision, Tuberculosis/HIV collaborative treatment and prevention of mother to child HIV transmission.
According to the 2015 UNAids Report, Zimbabwe accounted for four percent of all Aids-related deaths in 2013, even though its domestic figures show a decline of 57 percent between 2005 and 2013.
The number of HIV-related deaths in Zimbabwe also declined from 76 934 in 2011 to 63 853 in 2013, and new infections dropped from 85 724 in 2011 to 69 105 in 2013.
Source - Byo24News
