By Isabel Banda

Lilongwe, July 16, Mana: National Aids Commission (NAC) has said its initiatives to get an Aids free nation by 2030 in the coming generation was proving to be successful.

Speaking with Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Tuesday in Lilongwe, Acting HIV Protection and Prevention Officer for NAC, Francis Mabedi said that the main aim for these groups were to give access to the youth with information about HIV and its preventive measures.  

“These groups have been put in place so that they can help youths have access to all the HIV services and information that the country offers,

The groups are special for youths living with HIV and AIDS and they provide support by looking at issues concerning stigma, discrimination among peers and providing awareness to the masses so as to curb the spread of the virus as we are working on 95:95:95 project which is targeting the elimination of HIV as a public health by 2030,” he said.

Mabedi added that in the past many young people have been contracting the virus because they were not aware of the ways they could catch the virus but because of these groups many of them now are aware of the preventive measures and the dangers that the virus could cause to the human body.

“The other challenge that these groups were facing was lack of drug adhering among youth which led to increase in numbers of high viral load in hospitals and high number of deaths due to HIV and AIDS,” he added.

One of the group members that has benefitted from this initiative, Eliana chitsamba (not her real name) said, the group has helped her a lot when it comes to getting her lost self esteem back.

“The group has been like a second home to me in a way that I feel free to meet my friends in the same group and encourage each other on how we can improve our lives and be like any other person,

This initiative has helped me to be more self-confident and now I am able to join my fellow youths in doing things that I was unable to do due to low self-esteem,” she explained.

The 95:95:95 strategies were launched in 2014 by the joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS.

The aim is to diagnose 95 percent of all HIV positive individuals, provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) For 95 percent of those diagnosed and achieve viral suppression for 95 percent of those treated by 2030.