Harare — Today Zimbabwe will assess what it has done over the last two decades to fight the worst disaster to hit this nation, the HIV pandemic, and will look at strategies so that we can win this battle.

Much has been done, but we are a very long way from victory. Yet we should not despair.

We have already moved from the stage of staring at total defeat and the destruction of the country. We are now, by the look of things, at the stage where, for the first time, it looks as though we can win - one day.

On the positive side, just about everyone in Zimbabwe is very aware of HIV and Aids. Everyone knows how HIV is transmitted long before they can become sexually active. Information is readily and publicly available. Nothing is being swept under the carpet. Society has discarded age-old taboos in the battle. As just one example, condoms are very cheap and sold openly at supermarket tills and in garages, something unheard of 20 years ago.

Yet we obviously still have a long way to go. While some, and regrettably this is a minority although a significant minority, have changed their sexual behaviour, there is still a sizeable majority unwilling to do so, or at least unwilling to do so enough.

We need to look at why both groups, those who have changed and those who have not, behave the way they do so we can continue to whittle down the high-risk group.

In this regard, we have to take into account the arrival of affordable anti-retroviral drugs. There are some, and this is a problem that has already emerged in most developed countries where the drugs have been in use for a few years, who will cease being careful because they now know that HIV is not a sentence of premature death.

We cannot reject the new drugs, on either moral or economic grounds. It would be evil to tell someone that they cannot be allowed to live when there are drugs that can keep them alive. And it makes economic sense to keep our productive workforce alive and supporting their families rather than assume the far higher cost of dealing with people exhibiting the symptoms of Aids and then looking after their orphaned children.

But we are still far from a cure or even a vaccine for HIV, and people must know this.

The arrival of the affordable drugs and the conversion of HIV into a typical controlled chronic illness can help the battle to control the spread of the infection. One problem that has bedevilled the programme to persuade everyone to find out about their HIV status has been the fear of so many that they might be positive. Regrettably that fear has meant some HIV-positive people spread the infection to people who are negative.

The new drugs should reduce the fear, and so the reluctance, to take the tests. We are sure that almost everyone who actually knows they are HIV-positive would be willing to take precautions not to pass the infection along.

So the arrival of anti-retrovirals presents many new opportunities for drastically slowing the spread of the virus as well as the danger of less responsible behaviour. We need strategies that maximise the gains and negate the losses of the new drugs.

It is not impossible to change behaviour and to change societies. Just look at the anti-smoking campaigns, even in Zimbabwe, which has not taken them as seriously as most countries.

We have seen that infection rates in the latest generation that reached sexual maturity, the generation that has grown up under the shadow of HIV, are significantly lower when compared to their elders, although these rates must still be considered appalling.

But at least we know change for the better is possible. At least we know that victory against this terrible scourge can be won. Even five years ago we did not have that optimism. We need to thank our young people for that hope.

In the end, the battle against HIV will be won only when almost everyone is unwilling to indulge in high-risk behaviour. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers and youths have shown us that this is not impossible. Their more reckless peers, their elders and the new generation now growing up need to follow that example.