The commemoration of HIV/AIDS week kicked off yesterday amid calls to the public to turn up in big numbers at the Mnazi Mmoja grounds to access a variety of services including HIV and diabetic testing.
Mr Said Meck Sadick, the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner
Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner (RC) Sadiki Meck Sadick said the Aids Week will climax on December 1, when the world marks the World Aids Day.
The Dar es Salaam RC, in a speech read on his behalf by the Ilala District Commissioner, Raymond Mushi, noted that apart from health services there will be stalls providing public education and brochures on HIV/AIDS and other interesting activities.
“There will be a number of activities during this week leading up to the World Aids Day on December 1st and this will include counselling, HIV testing and many more, so the public should take this opportunity and visit Mnazi Mmoja grounds where these activities are taking place,” he noted.
He added that there will be a two-day national symposium on implementation of the World Aids Day 2013 theme which will take place at Hyatt Hotel in Dar es Salaam on 28th and 29th this month.
This years’ theme dubbed, ‘Tanzania without new HIV/AIDS infection, stigmatization and deaths from Aids is possible’, stresses the focus of the international community which is also in line with the country’s national focus that by 2015 new HIV infections should be zero, stigmatization zero and deaths from AIDS zero.
The RC noted that HIV/AIDS infection is still a nationwide problem, adding that a Malaria and HIV/AIDS indicator Survey report released in 2011/12 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that the infection rate is at 5.1 per cent, whereby the rate is at 6.2 per cent in women and 3.8 per cent in men.
The survey also indicated that the infection rate is high in urban/town areas at 7.2 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent in villages and rural areas.
Mr Sadick noted that the survey showed that nationally, the infection rate has gone down from 7.0 per cent in 2003/04 to 5.7 per cent in 2007/08 and to 5.1 per cent in 2011/12.
“A part from the drop of HIV infection nationally, Dar es Salaam also noted a decrease in infections from 10.9 per cent in 2003/04 to 9.3 in 2007/08 and to 6.9 per cent in 2011/12.
Another report by a Global Anti-Poverty and Disease Movement based in Johannesburg, South Africa has noted that the country has a record of 155,000 people living with HIV/Aids on antiretroviral medication while new infections have dropped by 32 per cent between 2002 and last year.
The report noted that the country has also made some progress in the number of people living with the virus from 1.5 million to 1.47 million during the same period.
“Tanzania has made moderate, though irregular, progress in the fight against AIDS in the past decade. In 2002, 1.5 million people were living with HIV and another 129,000 people were newly infected with the virus,” the report christened ‘Beginning of the End’ noted.
By ROSE ATHUMANI, Tanzania Daily News
