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Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE National Aids Council (Nac) is targeting to have all HIV/Aids patients on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) treatment by the end of next year.It is estimated that 1, 3 million people are living with HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe and only 50 percent have been initiated on the ART programme.

There has been a slow initiation of children infected with HIV with less than 40 percent of the 163,000 children infected still to be initiated on ART therapy.

Nac monitoring and evaluation director, Amon Mpofu said HIV programmes are being rolled out together with TB programmes.

He said: “HIV programmes are being  rolled out in conjunction with TB programmes.  What we have seen so far is that there has been a decline in TB cases which shows that our coverage is quite high in terms of treatment for patients that have TB and HIV.

“The collaboration to combat the two diseases has actually caused a decline in TB cases. We are hoping that by end of 2015 we should have reached 100 percent in terms of coverage for TB programmes and for HIV we are around 50 percent of people who are HIV positive who
are accessing ARVs. So we are trying to make sure that by the end of next year 80 percent will be accessing ARVs which we call universal access.”

He said NAC was working on ensuring that an immunisation programme for HIV positive people not to contract TB is decentralised to all districts.

TB notifications peaked in 2002 and annually cases have been declining and for 2013 the country recorded 35 340 cases of TB.

Provincial Medical Director for Midlands, Dr Milton Chemhuru said the programme has so far been  rolled out in Gokwe South and ShurugwidDistricts which have the highest number of TB cases in the province.