HIV stats worst in Kwaluseni Inkhundla
MBABANE – The Kwaluseni Inkhundla continues to have a high number of HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women.
This was confirmed by the National Emergency Response Council on HIV andAIDS (NERCHA) Head of Communications Siphesihle Nkwanyana, who highlighted that out of 1 606 of the youth who tested at Kwaluseni, 62 of them were positive which was the highest in all 10 tinkhundla between 2019 and 2021.
She said the new infections were currently at 1.36 per cent for the youth aged between 15 and above and were higher among young people aged between 15 to 24 years at 2.4 per cent where 1.9 per cent were females and 0.9 per cent were among their male counterparts.
“New infections are still higher among young people in the country, especially among adolescent girls and young women,” said Nkwanyana.
Response
She said given the rise in infections, the HIV and AIDS response in the Kingdom of Eswatini was working tirelessly to reduce new HIV infections, in particular among young people aged between 15 and 24 years.
Most of the drivers of HIV, according to Nkwanyana, revolved around this population group with low comprehensive knowledge, early sexual debut, school dropouts, low condom use and intergenerational sex.
“The HIV recent surveillance conducted by the ministry of health presented 10 main hotspot tinkhundla in the country and the first being Kwaluseni with the highest rate of new infections, Lobamba, Siphofaneni, Mbabane East, Lugongolweni, Dvokodvweni and Kukhanyeni,” said the head of communications.
Surveillance
She said the surveillance indicated that Kwaluseni had the highest recent infections, which called for targeting specific interventions into those areas, however, more detailed assessments of the dynamics needed to be conducted.
The main driving factors she said included gender based violence, multiple sexual partners and non-condom use during sexual activity.
In most cases, failure to use condoms was influenced by transactional and intergenerational sexual relationships which forced girls and young people to fail to negotiate for condom use.
To this end, Nkwanyana said that NERCHA had been holding dialogues in the affected tinkhundla, which they hoped would contribute to HIV competence through enabling participants to brainstorm concrete action plans for responding to HIV. “NERCHA’s reaction was realising the gap and immediately making means to close it. A recommendation was made on the need for NERCHA, in collaboration with the ministry of health, to strengthen programmes delivered to different partners to the inkhundla,” added Nkwanyana.
She said in order to address the alarming rates of new HIV infections, NERCHA quickly convened HIV Indaba sessions with community members in the 10 constituencies using its regional offices.
“The aim was to gather public views on the ballooning HIV cases under the different tinkhundla. The multi-sectoral consultation sessions included adolescent girls and young women, youth, men, community police, key populations, church leaders and dagga farmers to name a few,” said Nkwanyana.
To address the issues presented, NERCHAthen met with partners to encourage strengthened service delivery in the identified tinkhundla in order to address the issue of new HIV infections and ensure that the national vision of ‘Ending AIDS by 2022’ was realised.
When asked what they had identified as some of the key reasons for high infections in some tertiary institutions, Nkwanyana said that students decried inefficient and untimely issuing of allowances and stipends to cater for their basic needs without them looking for help elsewhere.
Loveless
“They asked the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to speed up the process so they did not find themselves in crises of loveless love affairs thereby exposing themselves to HIV acquisition,” she said. The head of communications went on to highlight that there were a number of things that needed to be done to improve service delivery in tertiary institutions, some of which included boosting the capacity of the institution’s clinic as well as health services to respond to HIV/AIDS related illnesses.
She said this would enhance the ability to offer voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) services and adequately handle the issues of support and care for infected and affected individuals.
“This will assist the establishment of HIV/AIDS centres with permanent and qualified personnel to address issues at institutional level and develop youth friendly HIV programmes,” she added.
Nkwanyana further highlighted that they needed to intensify education and awareness, distribution of condoms and encourage correct and consistent use.
“We need to encourage students to participate in community outreach programmes, research and integration of HIV/AIDS into curriculum and extra-curricular activities. This entails mainstreaming HIV/AIDS as a fully fledged tertiary course,” she added.