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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Representatives to the largest regional Aids conference are in the country to assess whether Zimbabwe meets set standards to host this year’s event scheduled to take place in December.

Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said hosting the International Conference on Aids and STIs in Africa (ICASA) was good for the country’s visibility.

“Apart from the tourism aspect that the country is set to benefit from by hosting this event, the conference will also demonstrate that we are able to host meetings of any magnitude,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.

He said the high level meeting would also provide the country with a platform to showcase some of its key achievements in the health sector.

ICASA coordinator Mr Luc Armand Bodea said initially the conference was supposed to be held in Tunisia but they had to move the venue due to other reasons.

Mr Bodea said Zimbabwe was their second option and the assessment would determine whether the country had the capacity to host such an event.

“We are thinking to host the 18th edition of ICASA here in Zimbabwe. We are here to assess the facilities such as a conference centre that can care for a minimum of 5 000 to 10 000 delegates,” said Mr Bodea.

“So before we finalise with Zimbabwe, we want to make sure that the country has enough infrastructure to host this big event,” he said.

ICASA president Dr Ihab Ahmed said Zimbabwe would know today (Tuesday) if it had the capacity to host the conference.

He however said chances were high that the country would be chosen.

“We hope to succeed in hosting this event here in Zimbabwe,” Dr Ahmed said. “We have just met the Health Minister and he is committed to have the event held in this country. We also toured the venue of the conference and all our findings so far are very positive,” he said.

Meanwhile, another 13-member delegation from Uganda has arrived in the country to learn best practices on domestic funding for Aids-related activities.

The team, led by Uganda’s Minister of State for Health Sarah Opendi said they were working on possibilities of domestic funding hence the visit to Zimbabwe to learn how best to run the programme.

Minister Opendi said like many African nations, her country was heavily dependent on donors.

Zimbabwe was the first country in Africa to have domestic funding through the Aids Levy.

Of late a number of country’s have been visiting the country to learn how best to mobilise resources internally instead of depending on donor funding.