Zimbabwean men need to know their HIV status
A report by the National AIDS Council (NAC) has revealed that more Zimbabwean women are accessing HIV and AIDS literature and anti-retroviral treatment compared to men. In the 2010 report the figures show that a total of 1,612,388 people were tested in the past 12 months of which 539,162 were men and 1,073,226 were female. The existing gap of is very wide and saddening.
It is now mandatory for every pregnant woman to undergo HIV tests to help prevent the passing of the virus to the baby (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission). This reveals that when women go for these HIV tests their husbands do not go with them. Most men tend to rely heavily on the HIV status of their wives for them to hastily judge their own. If the wife is negative, they assume they are negative also. If the wife is positive, instead of assuming that they carry the same status too, like they would have done in the previous scenario, these men tend to leave their spouses and blame them bringing the virus into their homes.
In the same report it was also indicated that there was a decline in the HIV prevalence rate in Zimbabwe from 18.5% to 14.2%. This is something that is most welcome as it goes a long way in showing the fruitfulness of the efforts being made by the government and non-governmental organisations to curb the spread of the virus in the country.
However, even more can be done if more men take the initiative in going for HIV tests for them to know their status and prevent its spread to their partners.