As SADC Health Ministers meet in Harare to discuss various issues affecting the region, there have been calls for the harmonisation of the region's HIV treatment regimens to improve access to treatment.
Zimbabwe is currently hosting a joint meeting for SADC Health Ministers and Ministers responsible for HIV and AIDS, which is seeking to address various issues affecting the health sectors of member states.
Among the issues being discussed is the region's response to public health challenges, including HIV and AIDS.
Addressing the media during a workshop on the country's response to HIV and related issues in the capital yesterday, National Aids Council (NAC) monitoring and evaluation director Mr Amon Mpofu said Zimbabweans living with HIV who stayed and worked in neighbouring countries had to come back home to access their treatment.
"We discovered that most of our people who are taking ARVs are living across the border, and they have to come back to Zimbabwe to get ARVs. If you go to a South African hospital, you cannot be given ARVs because the regimens they are giving are different from the ones in Zimbabwe. Botswana has accepted giving ARVs to Zimbabweans but still, the regimen might be different. So our people end up using what we call omalayitsha who then come to Zimbabwe, collect ARVs, take them across the border, to be swallowed in South Africa," he said.
"Currently we are using what you call Community ART Refill Groups (CARGs) where a representative comes to Zimbabwe to collect for everyone and distribute to others in the neighbouring countries."
Approximately 1,3 million Zimbabweans are living with HIV and more than 95 percent of them are on treatment.
With the high number of locals living and working in the diaspora, Mr Mpofu said this was creating challenges in tracking treatment adherence.
"But who has seen these people swallowing ARVs? Are they being used for the intended purposes? That's the dilemma we are in. We have to have faith that they are taking them. As Zimbabwe, we have to do what we can to protect our people.
"These are the issues that should be raised during the meeting. We have issues that are affecting us as a region because our people are moving across borders and they need to access decent treatment in all these countries. If we have a similar regimen, it makes it easy for people to access treatment as they move across countries," he said.
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East and Southern Africa is the epicentre of the HIV epidemic. Statistics show that 25, 6 million people were living with HIV in the African region in 2022, with 20,8 million of these living in East and Southern Africa.
While there has been major progress in the HIV response in the two regions, the number of new infections continues to be high particularly among adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-24 years) who still accounted for 27 percent of new HIV infections in 2022.
