Back to Index

ZIMBABWE: MPs test for HIV lauded
IRIN PlusNews
May 11, 2004

http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3361

HARARE - A decision by nine Zimbabwean MPs to publicly have themselves tested for HIV would encourage others to know their status and reduce the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, say NGOs.

The nine MPs were tested at the New Start counselling and testing centre in Harare last week under the Public Personalities Against AIDS Trust (PPAAT) programme, which aims to fight the pandemic by placing public personalities at the forefront of the battle against HIV/AIDS.

The disease has ravaged the country's population since the first HIV/AIDS case was identified in Zimbabwe in 1985. HIV infection rates had "progressively increased to the adult prevalence [rate] of 33.7 percent in 2002", according to the Zimbabwe Human Development report launched last week.

The MPs were tested as a crowd of onlookers gathered. "I hope after getting tested these legislators will really start programmes in their constituencies to remove the current stigma associated with the disease and help those affected and infected by HIV/AIDS," said Teurai Mhere, who was part of the curious crowd at the testing centre.

The founder of PPAAT, Tendayi Westerhof, said the testing of the nine legislators was "a breakthrough" in the fight against the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS as well as the fight against the disease itself.

Westerhof said the aim of the exercise was to encourage people to know their HIV status to enable them to live positively. "It is up to the MPs to declare their status in public or not. What we want is for people to know their status so that they can make informed decisions on issues like marriage and sex. We don't need to know the results of their tests, what we want is to have them get tested ... to lead in the fight against AIDS by example," she said.

The results of the MPs were confidential, unless the individual concerned wished to make their status known, she added.

Westerhof, a former model, was one of the first personalities to publicly declare that she was living positively with HIV.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP