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Senior Reporter
A TOTAL of 89,000 people including 3,462 children are on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in Matabeleland North province, an official has said. National Aids Council (Nac), provincial coordinator, Dingani Ncube told Chronicle that Tsholotsho District tops the list in the province with 11,111 people on ART.

“We have 89,000 people on anti-retroviral therapy in the province. Of these 3,462 are children,” he said adding, “There are four leading districts in terms of ART distribution, which are Tsholotsho with 11,111 people, followed by Hwange on 8,800 people, Lupane with 7,580 people and Nkayi with 3,949 people,” he said.

Ncube cited spousal separation due to labour migration as a major factor behind the huge figures in Tsholotsho.
He said: “The majority of the male population in Tsholotsho is working in South Africa and Botswana while their spouses remain behind. What was observed was that the males from this area drop out of school earlier and immediately go to South Africa or Botswana to look for employment opportunities.

“When they come back most of them marry and leave their wives manning their homesteads or with their parents. Some of them infect their spouses,” he said.

Ncube said Hwange District was the second highest and attributed the trend to tourism activity in Victoria Falls and coal mining business in Hwange Town.

“Mining and tourism are attributed to the high prevalence rate of HIV in this district. Truck drivers and tourists attract prostitutes. It is believed that tourists and the truck drivers pay better for their services and in their absence, the prostitutes target locals,” he said.

“The locals are then exposed to the risks of HIV/Aids because of this interaction thereby making the district a hot spot.”

Ncube said Lupane was affected by                              spill-overs from Hwange and Tsholotsho Districts because of its location.
Ncube, who visited the resort town last week, said his organisation was engaging tourism players and the business community to HIV/Aids awareness programmes at the workplace.

“We are here out of the realisation that tourism players and the business community here were now slowing down of the issues on HIV/Aids programmes.

“Following the gains achieved by the country with dropping of the HIV prevalence and incidence, there had been a slow-down as the people think they now know much about the scourge.

“So we are here to alert businesspeople about the real dangers of HIV/Aids because we want to reach zero new HIV infections, zero HIV-related deaths, zero HIV-related discrimination,” said Ncube.