Thursday, March 28, 2024

Over 10,000 Kaoma residents are HIV positive

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Out of 121,000 people living in the Kaoma district, 10,300 are HIV positive and 7,000 are on treatment, health authorities have disclosed.

District Director of Health Idi Mwinyi revealed the figures in Kaoma today during the commemoration of World AIDS day.

Dr. Mwinyi said his office was working towards having 90 percent of people living with HIV on treatment as this is the only way to have a healthy society.

He has since called on all stakeholders including traditional, civic, church and all community leaders to come on board and support the government in fighting the scourge.

This year’s theme is ‘Communities making a difference-pressing towards ending AIDS’.

Speaking earlier, Kaoma District Commissioner Kennedy Mubanga said in a speech read for him by District Agriculture Coordinator Christabel Kakumbi, called on people in the district to know their HIV status.

Mr. Mubanga said this year’s theme is timely as it comes at a time when everyone in the community needs to play a role to curb the further spread of the pandemic.

And Kaoma District Council Chairperson Austin Muneku has called on families not to discriminate against people living with the disease but to instead be supportive by ensuring that they take their medication.

Mr. Muneku has attributed the spread of HIV among teenagers in Kaoma to drug abuse and excessive alcohol intake.

He has since called on parents to take responsibility of their children’s actions if new infections are to be curbed.

The world AIDS day commemorations in were characterized by a candlelight service in memory of people that died of HIV/AIDS.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Not a good statistic, besides very few men and youths know their status because they’re not willing to take the test. They’ve hope because treatment is available even in remote areas thanks to PEPFAR. It’s unfortunate that this lifeline gets threatened by heartless individuals whose greed is nondescript. Can you imagine that ARVs worth millions of Dollars were stolen at Medical Stores and no one has been held accountable? Even funds that are meant to assist people living with HIV reduce their burden are never disbursed but end up in people’s pockets! These are the things that Govt needs to be disgusted about else we begin to think that they’re collaborators in these crimes

    • This is very disturbing news.

      As a country, we seem nowhere near taming HIV infections.

      The trouble is that even very young girls now want to be doing the dirty with old men just for a few hundred Kwachas.

  2. if only men zipped their ntwenu and women closed their legs tightly and both stick to one partner, we couldn’t have been talking about this !

    • Clearly you do not know Zambian women.

      These days, they are a lot worse than men when it comes to sleeping around.

      With this harsh economy, NEARLY every girl in Zambia would open their legs very wide to any blesser.

      Just ask Sharon.

  3. HIV is not like any other disease that can be cured nor treated in a blink of an eye , it is sad that about over 10,000 people are infected with HIV.

    please do not discriminate the ones that are experiencing this for we must stand for one and one for all, love your neighbour as your love yourself despite whatever that particular person is going through . 🙁 🙁

  4. Blame it on the poverty created by PF. Spread of the HIV will never be controlled as long as you have this evil government lying to you that they will develop you when all they are doing is looking after themselves while young women are sleeping around with infected men who are financed by Lungu’s PF. These women have no other source of income to pay bills, feed their children etc, etc.
    Stop corruption and stealing of tax payers’ money and create jobs so that young women do not have to rely on infected PF men.

  5. Very sad news indeed and some one is promoting what will increase the pandemic really unfortunate, who doesn’t know that there is more AIDS amongst people who choose homosexuality as a lifestyle .

  6. @Enlightened, PF is not the one that is financing HIV and AIDS to women.This is a disease that nobody can tell or guess if the partner is carrying it or not..lets not forcely accuse PF men for this because you can’t tell me a newly born baby is equally under political parties.All we have to do is to work hand in hand with those affected so that they can feel loved and cared for than isolating them or putting blames on one another.

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