NEW AIDS PREVENTION : ZIM TO MISS OUT

Zimbabwe’s heavy reliance on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for many years could see the country losing out on the latest ground-breaking HIV and Aids intervention by the United States’ President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), with the Trump administration indicating that it will not be distributed through non-profit entities.

PEPFAR is supporting an initiative by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria to provide lenacapavir to up to two million people in countries with high burdens of HIV.

According to UNAids, lenacapavir, is one of the most promising new HIV prevention tools that has emerged in HIV response, offering protection against the virus with just twice-yearly injections.

And in Zimbabwe, NGOs have been at the forefront of fighting the pandemic, with PEPFAR implementingcomprehensive HIV programmes since 2006 through the United States Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, announcing the latest developments in partnership with Gilead Sciences and the Global Fund on the PEPFAR Initiative recently, US State Department senior official for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom, Jeremy Lewin, said the programme would not be implemented through NGOs.

“For too long, PEPFAR’s budget has been drained by sort of NGO implementing partners that are charging very high indirect cost rates and has been sort of focused on non-core activities,” Lewin said.

“But the core of PEPFAR, what’s made it so effective for so many years, has been the delivery at scale, the procurement and purchasing of medications, whether that’s sort of conventional antiretrovirals, prevention medication or sort of medical breakthroughs like lenacapavir.

“As we think about it, there’s been a lot of sort of media attention on some of the programmes that we have cut because they’re no longer aligned with our priorities.” Newsday

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