HARARE,  -- The Zimbabwean government is taking new measures to arrest the HIV prevalence in a single digit, despite that the country has been commended for its national response to HIV which has seen the country recording a decline in prevalence over the past decade.

From a high of over 30 percent 10 years ago, Zimbabwe's HIV prevalence is now at 13.7 percent. As the International AIDS Conference opened in Vienna, Austria on Sunday, experts in the field of health and HIV complimented the country's response.

Presenting an update of HIV in the world over the past few years, Dr Yves Souteyrand, coordinator of the strategic information unit in the HIV and AIDS department in the World Health Organization, said between 460,000 and 860,000 new HIV infections have been averted in Zimbabwe due to behavior change.

Surveys in Zimbabwe show that a reduction in casual sex, the number of extramarital partners, paid sex and high condom use were evident since 1999.

While death is one of the reasons for the decline in prevalence, especially in the initial years when HIV treatment was virtually unavailable, the systematic decline pointed to a more sustained behavior change pattern.

Zimbabwe's government has now adopted new guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO), giving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to HIV-positive people with a CD4 count (which measures immune system strength) of 350 or less, rather than at the previously recommended count of 200.

Around 226,000 people are obtaining ARVs from Zimbabwe's public health system, leaving a treatment gap of about 340,000. But the new guidelines mean that at least half a million people will now qualify for treatment, at a cost of 7 U.S. dollars per person per month.

According to Dr Owen Mugurungi, the National Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS coordinator, phasing in of the new guidelines would not start until January 2011, but the government has begun training additional health workers, and in the meantime pregnant women and infants would be given priority in starting treatment earlier.

In line with the WHO recommendations, Zimbabwe's new guidelines call for greater use of laboratory monitoring, including CD4 count and viral load testing to determine the amount of HIV in the blood in managing treatment, and urge replacement of the widely used first-line ARV, staduvine, which is associated with serious side effects, with the less toxic but more expensive tenofovir.

The health department is now receiving increased funds from the treasury, international donors and the national AIDS Levy to finance the scale-up of treatment and monitoring.

National HIV/AIDS programs have largely been funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Expanded Support Program, a basket fund supported by contributions from Canada, Britain, Ireland, Norway and Sweden.

About 3 million dollars was collected from the AIDS Levy in the first quarter of 2010, of which about 50 percent was allocated for treatment, and the Global Fund disbursed 41 million dollars from two different funding rounds, but the combined figure falls short of what is needed for ARV drugs alone, according to local media reports.

HIV/AIDS activist Stanley Takaona applauded the adoption of the new guidelines, but urged the government to mobilize resources to scale up treatment as a matter of urgency.

The activist said that by announcing the adoption of these new guidelines, there are now high expectations.

(Source: iStockAnalyst )