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Lisa Shirichena, Herald Reporter
AHEAD of the 19th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and STIs in Africa to be hosted in Harare later this month, Zimbabwe is celebrating attaining its goal of eliminating mother-to-child HIV and congenital syphillis transmission, now down to 6.9 percent.

Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said the government remained on course to see its ultimate goal of an HIV-free generation.

“Zimbabwe has witnessed a rapid decline in new HIV infections among children, with the risk of mother to child transmission dropping from a high prevalence of 30 percent in 2009 to 6.9 percent,” he said.

In 2010, one in four pregnant women were passing HIV to their babies and this year it had reduced to one in 15 pregnant women passing the virus.

Dr Parirenyatwa commended donor partners and heath workers for helping the ministry to reach its goal.

“I sincerely thank Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) for having helped us accelerate activities towards eliminating new HIV infections among children and that their funding support will continue to allow us sustain the gains we have made to date,” he said.

Dr Parirenyatwa said the country could now sustain funding for the programme for prevention-of-mother-to-child-transmission.

“It’s important to us that Zimbabwe has innovative domestic and home-grown mechanism for funding the HIV and AIDS levy that is administered by the National AIDS Council, in addition to the resources that are allocated to the ministry from the ministry of finance,” he said.

EGPAF country director Dr Agnes Mahomva said they would continue with the programme.

“We injected $45 million through other partners to make sure mother to child HIV transmission is eliminated and we’re happy that Zimbabwe will be the first country in Africa to receive validation on elimination of MTCT and for next year we have injected $6 million,” she said.

Dr Mahomva said the target for eliminating the transmission was 5 percent and the country was almost reaching the goal.

The government says 1.5 million people live with HIV and out of these, 146,824 were children under 15 years of age.