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Dr Parirenyatwa

Herald Reporters
At least 8 000 nurses are set to undergo training and mentorship in HIV prevention, treatment and care under a US$65 million project that will run for the next five years.
Officially launching the project in Harare last week, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said the programme would bring confidence to health workers in initiating both adults and children on anti-retroviral drugs as well as performing surgical male circumcision.
In a speech read on his behalf by the head of the Aids and Tuberculosis Unit in the ministry, Dr Owen Mugurungi, Dr Parirenyatwa acknowledged nurses as the backbone of healthcare delivery and as such needed to broaden their scope of practice to include male circumcision and commencement of ARVs, among other areas.

“The integrated model of service delivery that is used in this support is quite critical in the strengthening of the service delivery system while at the same time fostering full ownership and sustainability of the programme through all the service delivery levels,” Dr Parirenyatwa said.

He said Government recently approved that nurses be trained to perform surgical male circumcision to increase the number of such procedures the country can conduct.
“This is in recognition of the immense benefit that the country will achieve by increasing the availability and accessibility of male circumcision as this intervention will directly avert 42 percent of all the new HIV infections in the next 10 years,” he said.

Funded by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, the five-year project will be implemented by the Zimbabwe Association of Church Related Hospitals and the International–Training and Education Centre for Health in 21 districts.

ZACH board chair Mrs Mercy Chaka said they would support programmes on opportunistic infections management, ARV treatment, testing and counselling as well as prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.