Angelah Nothando Mlotshwa
Environmental and Health Reporter
Imagine accidentally injecting oneself with an HIV/AIDS virus infected instrument or being infected through rape and worse still through a partner who is positive.
There is no need to despair any more as hope is on the horizon.
The Medicine Controls Authority of Zimbabwe has approved the highly effective use of Injectable Cabotegravir (ICAB-LA) as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prevention for HIV.
This comes after statistics have proven that Bulawayo suburbs of Nkulumane and Magwegwe are leading HIV/AIDS hotspots.
Behavioral change programs being churned by several organizations in trying to curb the surge of the once dreaded virus that attacks the immune system are hitting a brick wall.
A survey carried out by Zim GBC News show that youths become sexually active at a tender age of 14.
This is due to the lifestyles they try to emulate from idols on social media, movies and the internet. Youths now are clubbing, consume liquor and take drugs on an escalated scale.
This has led to indulging in unprotected sex culminating to the increase in positive HIV infections.
“IClub yiyo impilo yethu these days. Masingacluby senzeni?”
Clubbing is our life, if we don’t what would we do.
Responded Nobukhosi from Emakhandeni suburb in Bulawayo on being asked why she leads such a life.
But what about binges and unprotected sex?
“Ukufa yikufa, isn’t amaphilisi awe AIDS asekhona, ngizanatha” Nobukhosi’s friend responded as she refused with her name.
They were headed to a local Tshisa-Nyama hot spot in Bulawayo along Robert Mugabe Way.
Such behavior has led Zimbabwe being the first country in Africa to approve the injectable Cabotegravir virus prevention.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the drug is ‘highly effective in reducing risks associated with HIV infections’.
HIV remains a major public health issue, with approximately ’37. 7 million people with the virus and 1. 5 million new infections as at December 2020′.
“Long-acting Injectable Cabotegravir may be offered as an additional prevention choice for people at substitute risk of HIV infections as part of combination prevention approaches. ‘