Western Province  has now the second HIV Prevalence in the country. And Mongu Mayor Kusiyo Akayombokwa says it is unacceptable for Western Province to have an HIV prevalence rate of 16 percent, placing it second to Lusaka, which is the highest in the country at 16.1 percent. He has urged the National AIDS Council (NAC) to identify factors fuelling the virus in the province.

Speaking during a courtesy call on him by the Lusaka-based NAC team attending a social and behaviour change communication on condom promotion with and for adolescents programme, Mr Akayombokwa said concrete measures must be taken to curb new HIV infections in the predominantly rural province.

Concerned about high rates of HIV in Western Province, the Ministry of Health, through its provincial medical office, held a consultative meeting in May last year sponsored by the United States Government-supported Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and Zambia Centre for Communication Programmes (ZCCP) to unravel factors giving rise to new cases of the HIV burden.

Mr Akayombokwa challenged NAC to follow through the resolutions of the May consultative meeting to reverse the increase in the HIV case load in Western Province for the region to have full value for the resources spent on the meeting. “I am aware that the Ministry of Health organised an indada last year to seek measures to curb new HIV infections and mitigate the impact of the epidemic. You should lead the process of translating the resolutions of that consultative meeting into action to change the current status of the epidemic,” Mr Akayombokwa said.

Ministry of Health, with support from cooperating partners, has since 1985 implemented various policies, programmes and strategies aimed at eliminating the spread of the HIV epidemic in Western Province. These include scalingup of HIV services, training of healthcare providers, allocating and distribution of anti-retroviral drugs, and engagement of the community.

The number of health facilities providing HIV treatment has increased from 10 in 2007, to the current 177, and the province has increased the number of healthcare providers trained in HIV prevention, care and treatment. Despite these interventions, HIV prevalence in the province has continued to increase and there are fears that if no interventions are taken, the upward trend will continue with adverse consequences.

The objectives of the May 2017 Provincial Indaba were to share the worsening HIV burden with stakeholders in the province, establish specific drivers of the HIV epidemic, establish and strengthen roles stakeholders play in the provision of tuberculosis and HIV treatment and constitute a task force to oversee the implementation of resolutions of the indaba.

NAC is in Western Province to build capacity in stakeholders to develop HIV messages around condoms as barriers for HIV, other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancies in adolescents, as well as to review a 26-week series adolescent sexuality radio programme on Radio Lyambai.