JUSTICE Minister Wynter Kabimba has called for reinforcement of home-grown interventions in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Mr Kabimba said interventions should be done more in local languages so that a larger segment of the Zambian population could be reached.

He was speaking during a District AIDS Task Force (DAFT) fundraising venture at Protea Hotel in Chingola at the weekend.

He said there was urgent need to discourage cultural norms that impacted negatively on interventions.

The minister said health practitioners should encourage people seeking medical services to know their HIV/AIDS status.

Mr Kabimba, who is Patriotic Front (PF) Secretary General, appealed to medical practitioners to advise those seeking medical services to frequently test for HIV/AIDS.

"Our appeal to medical practitioners is for them to be bold and inform those seeking medical services to frequently test for HIV/AIDS rather than telling them that they will get better because they have malaria," he said.

Chingola District Commissioner George Sichula called on all interest groups to be committed to reducing new infections.

Mr Sichula commended DATF for its services and commitment to issues of HIV/AIDS.

Zambia Emory HIV/AIDS Research Project director Mubiana Inambao said the focus was aimed at reducing the rate of HIV/AIDS infections to zero tolerance.

Dr Inambao said more than 52,000 people had undergone voluntary counselling and testing from October 2010 to 2012 and that treatment was expensive, resulting in an expenditure of US$4,000 in treating an individual.