According to GlobalEnvision.com and the UNAIDS, Zimbabwe has used ABC ("Abstinence, Be Faithful, and Condoms") as well as "W" for "empowering women" (to demand ABC?) to lower their national HIV/AIDS rates from 25% to 20%. 1 in 5 is still a devastating number, but it's not 1 in 4.
Early analysis suggests that behavioral changes, including young people waiting longer before becoming sexually active, fewer casual sex partners and increased use of condoms, are parts of the explanation. But Mr. Dangor also pointed out that Zimbabwe's strong education system, its emphasis on district and community management of AIDS programmes and improvements in the status of women since independence in 1980 could also be factors.
The nation of Zimbabwe has had one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDs in the world, with as many as one in 4 pregnant women and young people diagnosed with the virus. The country also receives less international AIDS aide, $4 per year per infected person, compared to neighboring Zambia, where the aide is $184 per year per infected person.
As in Uganda, the tools that have made the difference are low cost and available with in each person. Education about the way that HIV is spread is essential, with behavioral changes encouraged in light of that knowledge. Men and women are taught to be abstinent outside of a monogamous relationship, to delay age of first sexual initiation, to limit the number of their partners to one and to be faithful to that one partner. For those who can't manage A or B, condom use is encouraged. And women are empowered to expect ABC.
There are scoffers who assert that the decrease in these high incidence nations is due more to the death rate of AIDS patients, but that skeptism is answered by the death rate of Zimbabwe. According to the article, the death rate would have had to be 4 times as high as it was in order to explain the new, lower rate of diagnosis of HIV.
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