The Zimbabwe National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan IV for the period 2021–2025 has recorded significant progress in the country’s response to HIV, although several critical gaps remain.
Persistent inequalities continue to undermine progress, particularly across age, sex, geographic location and specific population groups.
Presenting the end-term review of ZNASP IV, Lead Consultant Professor Simbarashe Rusakaniko said Zimbabwe had achieved the global 95-95-95 targets, with high levels of viral load suppression attained at national level. However, he noted that the pace of progress was not sufficient to meet long-term targets.
“If we look at HIV incidence and AIDS-related deaths, they have declined. But not at the pace required if we are to meet the 2030 targets. When we deal with national averages, there are important disparities that must be acknowledged,” Professor Rusakaniko said.
He noted that children, adolescents and men continued to lag behind across the HIV testing, treatment, retention and viral suppression cascade. Mother-to-child transmission rates also remained above the elimination threshold, while prevention outcomes were uneven due to inconsistent programme layering, low demand in some communities and geographic disparities.
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Professor Rusakaniko further highlighted structural barriers such as stigma, discrimination, and restrictive legal and policy environments affecting key populations, which continued to limit access to quality services.
He added that health system challenges — including shortages of commodities, inadequate human resources, laboratory reliability issues, fragmented health information systems, weak shock resilience and heavy reliance on external financing — posed risks to the sustainability of gains made.
He said the development of a new strategic framework, ZNASP V (2025–2030), presented an opportunity to close the identified gaps while intensifying prevention and treatment efforts.
Meanwhile, National AIDS Council chief executive officer Dr Bernard Madzima said funding cuts had dealt a severe blow to HIV intervention programmes.
“As we move into the 2026–2030 period and develop the next Zimbabwe AIDS National Strategic Plan, we are focusing on how to sustain the gains of the HIV programme, noting that we have already achieved the 95-95-95 targets,” Dr Madzima said.
He said sustaining progress would require increased domestic resource mobilisation, with Zimbabwe aiming to raise at least US$200 million annually to secure adequate supplies of antiretroviral medicines, laboratory commodities, condoms and sexual and reproductive health commodities.
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