Health Reporter

THE SOUTHERN Africa Information Dissemination (SAFAIDS) has scaled up its campaign on promoting sexual reproductive health among young people in order to reduce new infections and the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country, an official has said.
Currently, more than 1,2 million people are living with HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe and only 52 percent of the youths have adequate knowledge on HIV and AIDS prevention in the country.
Statistics show that young people have limited access to critical health services including HIV and AIDS and pregnancy prevention services. 
In an interview, SAFAIDS senior programme officer, Renias Mundingi said the increased campaign was meant to bridge an information gap between young people and sexual reproductive health service providers.
“Most youths do not know their sexual rights and as a result they engage in practices that may expose them to higher risk of contracting HIV virus,” said Mundingi.
Most young people in tertiary institutions were resorting to survival through prostitution, a situation that has exposed them to high risk of sexual abuses and getting infected with HIV and AIDS.
Reports indicated that over 10 000 people in Masvingo province have contracted sexually transmitted infections within three months from April to June this year.
The high incidence of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) comes in the wake of fears that students at tertiary institutions in the province were among the hardest hit as an undisclosed high number of students resort to prostitution to make ends meet.
SAFAIDS said access to reproductive health services campaign would also target tertiary institutions to help students guard against sexual abuse and dangerous diseases.
“The ‘Young for Real Programme’ will help to disseminate important information to youths on reproductive health to enable them to make informed decisions and also guard them against abuse and exploitation,” said Mundingi.
“If sexual rights are denied, it leads to lack of knowledge, lack of access to modern contraceptives, decreasing social status, increased sexual harassment of young people and a rise in HIV infections.”
Among all young people, youths in marginalised communities have a majority number of those who did not have access to reproductive health services.
Mundingi said the ‘Young for Real Programme’ would also target youths in remote areas of the country in order to educate them about their sexual rights.
“We have noted that most young people living in informal resettlements did not have access to reproductive health services and as a result may engage in sexual practices that are dangerous to their health” he said.
Unfriendly health centres were among the reasons which led to most youths engaging in unsafe sex that resulted in exposing them to sexual abuse such as early and unwanted pregnancies.
Mundingi said there was need to increase health centres and skilled service providers in the country so that they can provide proper education and services to youths.
“We have been training service providers on sexual reproductive health so that we create a favourable environment for young people to access these services,” he said. 
According to statistics released by National Aids Council recently, the country’s HIV prevalence rate has risen to 15 percent, a 0,74 percent increase from 14,26 percent recorded last year.
However, sexual reproductive health campaigns seem to be playing a pivotal role in changing the behaviour of most youths towards the use of protective methods during sexual activities as, Zimbabwe is one of the biggest condom users with more than 100 million distributed in 2012.
Zimbabwe is among other countries in the world moving towards ensuring that the nation ultimately gets to zero new HIV infections, zero stigma and discrimination and zero Aids-related deaths during post 2015.
Stakeholders involved in the national multi-sectoral response to HIV and Aids believe this could be achieved if the nation scales up prevention strategies like correct and consistent use of condoms, male circumcision, reducing multiple concurrent partnerships and abstinence.