By PASSY HAACHIZO –
CHIRUNDU District has continued to record high cases of HIV/AIDS due to some residents’ involvement in multiple sexual relationships, senior environmental health officer, Godwin Munsanje has said.
He said some residents of Chirundu, on the border with Zimbabwe, were engaging in multiple sexual relations to raise money.
This, he said, had made it difficult to scale down the escalating levels of HIV/AIDS.
Mr Munsanje said during a sensitisation workshop organised by the Zambia Weights and Measurements Agency (ZWMA) in Chirundu during the week that it was sad that the district had continued to record an increase in the number of people that tested HIV-positive due to lack of awareness programmes.
“The 2009 epidemiological synthesis highlighted truck drivers, commercial sex workers, cross-border traders, low and inconsistent use of condoms, vulnerability, and low rates of male circumcision as some of the causes for the rise in the infections,” Mr Munsanje said.
He said Chirundu had eight rural health centres that were there to conduct sensitisation programmes and to provide medical services in the vast area.
Mr Munsanje advised members of the public to go for voluntary counselling and testing and to embrace Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission service providers, among others.
He, however, said there was significant progress in the fight against the disease due to the strengthened policy on legal, institutional and strategic frameworks for multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS.