THE International Conference of AIDS and STIs Africa (ICASA) Executive Board is currently in the country on a mission to assess Zimbabwe’s capacity to host the 2023 ICASA conference.
By Michael Gwarisa
This follows Zimbabwe’s bid at the 2021 International AIDS Conference that was held in Montreal Canada where Zimbabwe among five other African countries, threw their names in the hat to be considered for hosting the prestigious conference. From the five countries that submitted, only Zimbabwe and Kenya have made it to the top two countries.
According to ICASA procedure, the top two countries will be selected for physical visits by the executive board of ICASA and they will then make a determination on which country will host the event.
Speaking to the media following the arrival of the ICASA team, Vice President and Minister of Health, Dr Constantino Chiwenga said while Zimbabwe is now left with Kenya in the race, he was confident the country would successfully host the conference next year.
Zimbabwe is ready to host ICASA in 2023 because we have done it before in 2015 and we also hosted the World Tourism Organisation conference in Victoria Falls. We have what it takes to host the ICASA,” said Dr Chiwenga.
He added that Zimbabwe was committed to play its part to ending and they have put modalities in place ensure that vision is attained.
“We have also developed Victoria Falls and upgraded its town status into a city and it has enough infrastructure to host the conference.”
Dr Luc Armand Bodea, Executive Director of ICASA applauded Zimbabwe’s infrastructure development and they were confident of Zimbabwe’s capacity to host an event of such magnitude.
“I am really impressed with the advancements in Zimbabwe’s infrastructural development, you could see even by the time we landed at the airport. We are confident of Zimbabwe’s capacity and we are here to make our conclusion as we are in a capacity assessment tour,” said Dr Bodea.
The 2021 edition of the ICASA was held in Durban South Africa through physical meetings were disrupted by the discovery of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
