AFRICA/ZIMBABWE - The Country ignores the disabled in the fight against HIV, the blind and the deaf the hardest hit

Chachacha (Agenzia Fides) - In Zimbabwe, home to 14 million people and, according to the National Association of Societies of Assistance to the Disabled, all over the country there are 1 billion 800 million disabled, deaf, blind people, infected with HIV. Despite the drop in cases from 29% in 1997 to about 13.7% today, disabled activists and HIV-positive say they do not receive any kind of assistance in the fight against the pandemic. There are no special government programs. In addition, the Ministry of Health and Care for Children has no statistics on the number of disabled people who have access to care for the treatment of HIV. The public health system lacks policies or programs for training health professionals, that deal with HIV with the training and knowledge needed to help the disabled in the prevention of the epidemic. Those most affected are the deaf and blind, for which there is no program of prevention, treatment and care. According to information of DHAT (Disability, HIV and AIDS Trust), many of the difficulties of these people living with HIV are derived from the common opinion of the medical staff, according to which people with disabilities are not sexually active. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 07/01/2016)

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