The decline is being attributed to targeted HIV and STI prevention programmes, but adolescents and young
women aged 15 to 24 continue to account for a disproportionate share of new infections.
By Kuda Pembere
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Harare Province have declined to fewer than 2,000 cases per quarter, down from between 2,000 and 3,000 cases previously recorded, according to the National AIDS Council (NAC).
NAC Harare Province manager Adonijah Muzondiona said the decline was being driven by targeted interventions aimed at adolescents and young people.
Muzondiona made the remarks in an interview on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show recently.
However, adolescents and young women aged 15 to 24 continue to account for a disproportionate share of new STI infections, he said.
“Yes, of late, we have had a surge of sexually transmitted infections. To start with, it’s across all ages, but the ages between 15 to 24, they seem to have the lion’s share of the new infections on STI, that is the sexually transmitted infections,” Muzondiona said.
He said the decline in reported cases suggested that targeted prevention programmes were beginning to have an impact.
“The figures, we are talking about 2,000 STIs, number of STIs that we recorded last time. And this quarter, I think they have gone down to below 2,000,” he said.
“I might not be certain now, but it has slightly dropped down, as I have already said. But we used to have 2,000 to 3,000 cases per quarter, which was something not very good for a province of Harare. We need them to go down.”
Muzondiona attributed the decline to interventions that take HIV and STI prevention services directly into communities and target young people through peer-led programmes.
“We are now targeting correctly, we are going down to the communities, to the districts, targeting these young people. Because our research has actually indicated that new infections of HIV are now coming, more of them are coming from these young people,” he said.
He said NAC was using programmes such as Sister to Sister, Brother to Brother, DREAMS, youth clubs and young people’s networks to promote HIV and STI prevention and self-awareness among young people.
Muzondiona also raised concern over relationships between adolescent girls and substantially older men, saying such relationships could increase young women’s vulnerability to HIV and STI infections.
“However, young people is young people, we have got a problem whereby the clients of these people, majority of them, when we do our indexed follow-ups, we have a problem of older men actually taking these young girls,” he said.
He said NAC had introduced interventions targeting older men to discourage relationships that expose adolescents and young women to HIV and STI risks.
“But where we have our strongest point is to group our young people through the clubs, through the young people’s network, through the sister to sister, through the brother to brother, so that they have self-awareness and they try and protect themselves, looking at the issues to do with abstinence,” Muzondiona said.
He said prevention messaging continued to emphasise abstinence, condom use and being faithful to one partner, while stressing the importance of age-appropriate relationships.
“We can still talk about abstinence amongst them, we can still talk about condom use, we can still talk about being faithful to one faithful partner of the proper age,” he said.
“Because you cannot expect a 15-year-old or 16-year-old or 18-year-old girl going out with a 35-year-old or 50-year-old man. Obviously, these are the areas that will have problems of continuous HIV as well as STI infections.”
Muzondiona, however, clarified that some of the STI figures being discussed were drawn from NAC’s 2025 annual reports, while the organisation had so far recorded data for the first and second quarters of 2026.
On HIV, Muzondiona said interventions targeting young people had contributed to a 38 percent reduction in new infections compared with the previous reporting period and the corresponding period last year.
“May I also say, I think we are seeing some developments on the side of our youth, whereby we actually reported 38 percent reduction of new infections as compared to last quarter and last year,” he said.
