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Dr Gerald Gwinji

Thandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care is working on training all health professionals to offer equitable HIV and Aids services to people living with disabilities (PWDs), an official has said.

According to Government provided statistics, an average of 10 percent PWDs are living with HIV.

In a statement, the Permanent Secretary (Retired )Major General Dr Gerald Gwinji said PWDs endure discrimination, attitudes and communication barriers when accessing such services.

“Currently the Ministry does not routinely capture information specific to people living with disability. However, we obtain such information from surveys and in 2013 the National Disability survey showed that 8.9 percent of males and 11.2 percent of females disclosed that they were living with HIV,” said Dr Gwinji.

“Confidentiality is part of our National Aids Policy therefore in situations where the individual with disability is accompanied by a family member, guardian or carer/aide there is therefore no breach of confidentiality. However, there are efforts to train health workers to be assertive to issues of disability in order to reduce or eliminate incidents of discrimination, negative attitudes and communication barrier,” he said.

Dr Gwinji said a sign language dictionary focusing on HIV and reproductive health had been developed in partnership with Disability HIV and AIDS Trust (DHAT).

“In response to the needs by the visually impaired to access information on condom use; condom instructions were put in braille in partnership with UNFPA with follow up sensitisation meetings on this intervention targeting PWD in the communities,” he said.

Dr Gwinji said the Ministry continues to advocate for resources and increased domestic funding for supporting sustainable national responses and innovations in the fight against HIV and Aids and management of PWDs.

According to the World Health Organisation, the relationship between HIV and disability has not received due attention,although persons with disabilities are found among all key populations at higher risk of exposure to HIV.

Zimbabwe has a total of 1, 3 million people living with HIV according to National Aids Council and 80 percent of those are on antiretroviral therapy.

@thamamoe