The National AIDS Council (NAC) says it can’t be business as usual regarding HIV and AIDS communication, as the landscape has drastically changed and needs new communication strategies that are cognisant of the new environment.
By Michael Gwarisa
The call comes in the midst of a surge in new HIV infections amongst adolescent girls and young women, a generation popularly known as Ama 2k or Ama 2000 in the Southern African countries. According to UNAIDS data, in Sub-Saharan Africa, four in five infections among 10-19 years olds are among girls.
Speaking in Interview with HealhTimes in Mazowe recently, National AIDS Council (NAC) Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr Raymond Yekeye said times have changed and so should the messaging around HIV and AIDS.
In our days when we started communiting around HIV and AIDS, we used Billboards, we used posters, we used pamphlets etc. Is that what the young people want now? We used a lot of radio and Television, we used Drama. Is that what the young people want? Should we not be focusing on Tictok, Facebook and Instagram where we find the young people,” said Mr Yekeye.
He added that It was time programmers identify problems and challenges that young people are facing around HIV and so to address and develop messages that address their concerns.
“More importantly, it’s about how do we use the channels that are user friendly to this particular age-group.”
Findings from a new National Assessment on Adolescent Pregnancies in Zimbabwe have shown that more pregnant young adolescent girls aged 10 and above, are testing positive for HIV upon booking at the Antenatal Clinic (ANC
According to the report, an estimated 1,706,946 ANC bookings were made in 1,560 health care facilities captured in the DHIS- 2 platform from 2019-2022 among women of childbearing aged 10 years and above. Of these, 21 percent were among adolescents aged 10-19 years. A total of 1532 maternal deaths were recorded and of these 25 percent were among adolescent and young women under 24 years.
