An HIV/AIDS advisor says the increase in the number of brothels and high Poverty levels currently prevailing in Livingstone is impacting negatively on the fight against pandemic.ÂÂ
Livingstone District HIV AIDS Coordinating Advisor Julius Chilongoshi complained
that it had become very expensive to fight HIV/ AIDS in the district due to high
poverty levels which was forcing most residents to go into prostitution taking
advantage of the tourist inflows.
Speaking when members of the visiting Livingstone District HIV AIDS Taskforce (DATF)
paid a courtesy call on Kitwe District Commissioner Macdonald Mtine in Kitwe today,
Mr Chilongoshi said most of the interventions that various stakeholders had put in
place to fight the diseases were not working out.
He said Livingstone was a tourist capital and at the same time a border town where
most of the people being targeted for these interventions were always in transit.
He added that DATF wanted to aggressively work with communities at local level to
ensure that interventions put in place to fight the pandemic were working out.
And speaking earlier at the same meeting, Livingstone Provincial HIV AIDS
Coordinating Advisor Elizabeth Mtonga said the HIV AIDS Prevalence rate in district
currently stood at 31% .
Mrs Mtonga said the DAFT and various stakeholders were working extra hard to ensure
that all the interventions put in place to prevent new infections and fight the
pandemic were working out.
She said Livingstone had a lot of challenges in the fight against HIV AIDS due to
the increase in the number of the people that were flocking in and out of the town.
She added that the group was in Kitwe so that they could exchange views and ideas
with the Kitwe DAFT on how the district was managing to implement and coordinate its
activities at Community Level.
Mrs Mtonga said Livingstone DATF had laready learnt that the Kitwe DATF through
partnership with various Stakeholders had managed to raise over K350 million for its
activities.
And Kitwe District Commissioner Macdonald Mtine said the Kitwe DAFT through working
with various Chief Executive Officers in the private sector had managed to come up
with an effective programme to coordinate and monitor the implementation of
activities in addressing the pandemic.
Mr Mtine said it was important to scale down HIV/AIDS incidences at community level,
if any tangible results were to be recorded.
He paid tribute to Share for sponsoring the teams visit to Kitwe.
