MUREWA, Zimbabwe

The 46-year old Miranda Chihota’s life took a turn four years ago when her husband died in a tragic road accident. 

When she was still convalescing from the tragedy, she was forcibly married to her husband’s brother, whose wife, she claimed, had succumbed to AIDS two years before Miranda’s husband died.

As a result, Miranda now shares the disease with her new husband due to the culture of spousal inheritance still practiced across Zimbabwe.

“I had no choice, because in our culture if one loses a husband or wife, he or she is inherited by the relative of the spouse,” Miranda told Anadolu Agency.

Miranda, from Murewa — a rural district approximately 80 kilometers (49.7 miles) east of the Zimbabwean capital Harare — said she also now bears the brunt of nursing an HIV positive child.

Meanwhile, Tinashe Chipako, a Zimbabwean legal expert, said women in most cases are the lead victims when it comes to inheritance.

“Men can choose to marry without necessarily being forced to inherit the wife of a dead relative, unlike women who are given no choice, so this inheritance culture is very unfair,” Miranda told Anadolu Agency.

There is no specific legislation in the southern African nation forbidding wife or husband inheritance.

Sithembiso Mlauli of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) based in Bulawayo — Zimbabwe’s second-largest city – said women are largely at the receiving end of the inheritance.

“A woman, the wife in particular, here in Zimbabwe, is being inherited like property after her husband dies even from AIDS, automatically becoming a wife of a husband’s relative who she never knew either had AIDS or not, thus putting herself at risk,” Mlauli told Anadolu Agency. 

Cultural fanaticism behind AIDS spread 

Despite culture fanatics insisting to continue the norms of spousal inheritance in this country, HIV/AIDS activists have fought tirelessly against the custom. 

“Inheritance of a wife or husband after either dies has contributed to the swift spread of HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe, especially in rural areas,” Trynos Tirivavi, who has been living with HIV for the past 16 years and also a member of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP plus), told Anadolu Agency.

He got the disease at the age of 23 after he inherited his late brother’s wife. “People just wade into inheriting someone’s wife or husband with no knowledge about what led to the death of their spouse, which is dangerous,” he said.  

Traditional leaders back inheritance 

Although many HIV positive individuals, like Trynos, testify about how they live their fate, some traditional leaders, including Elvis Mugumba from Maranda area in Mwenezi — a district in southern Zimbabwe – believes that the inheritance culture has to continue unhindered.

“Our forefathers lived and made sure the family continued to grow even after a husband died, by making sure his wife was inherited to keep bearing children with the help of the husband’s relative,” Mugumba told Anadolu Agency.

“One cannot, therefore, today tell us that this culture is responsible for spreading AIDS. People simply need to be faithful even in marriages resulting from an inheritance,” he said.

Yet, as traditional leaders like Mugumba maintain this stance, millions of Zimbabweans succumb to HIV and AIDS daily.

According to UNAIDS, an estimated 1.3 million Zimbabweans are currently living with HIV/AIDS.

In 2018 alone, 38,000 Zimbabweans were newly infected with HIV while 22,000 people died from an AIDS-related disease, it said.

This is despite the last year’s figures by UNAIDS, showing progress in the number of AIDS-related deaths since 2010, with a 60% drop from 54,000 to 22,000 deaths.

Even as cultural norms of inheritance threaten to thwart the gains made so far in combatting the sexually transmitted disease, UNAIDS last year also said the number of new HIV infections has fallen from 62,000 to 38,000.  

AIDS activists against inheritance custom

For many HIV/AIDS activists like Tirivavi, “to stop further spread of AIDS in family circles, the culture of wife or husband inheritance should stop forthwith.”

“Imagine how HIV keeps spreading in family circles through inheritance simply because it is a culture that people ought to uphold,” he said.

Typically, therefore, according to HIV/AIDS activists like Tirivavi, “in this era of HIV/AIDS, the inheritance custom is extremely risky.”

An official from the National AIDS Council (NAC) who spoke to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity, because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said the organization does not condone or condemn the practice of inheritance. 

”But we urge people to know their HIV status before they are inherited following their loss,” the official said.

“For as long as the inheritance cycle keeps going, so goes also the AIDS scourge in families that uphold the culture without precautions being taken,” said the NAC official.

NAC is a Zimbabwean organization enacted through an Act of Parliament in 1999 to coordinate and facilitate the national multi-sectoral response to HIV and AIDS. The organization is also mandated to administer the National AIDS Trust Fund collected through the AIDS levy.

The post Spousal inheritance fuels spread of AIDS in Zimbabwe appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Benson Hungwe, 32, has dedicated his life to helping patients suffering from HIV and AIDS in the Zimbabwean capital.

The alleys of Epworth, a slum settlement east of Harare, echo with stories of people who are too poor to seek treatment for the disease they have contracted.

Hungwe for much of his life juggled between taking care of his siblings and completing his medical education after the death of his parents from AIDS.

He is now a revered medical practitioner and the hope for the local community of Epworth.

“With help from well-wishers and undertaking menial jobs, I did succeed to feed my brothers and also continue my education,” he said.

But, everybody is not so lucky, he confesses. For him, the fortunate part was that his parents had not passed HIV to their children.

After getting himself a job, Hungwe moved from Epworth in pursuit of an improved standard of life to Braeside, a suburb east of Harare. He would visit communities in Epworth often, helping out HIV and AIDS patients.

“Lot of people are infected and affected by HIV and AIDS in Epworth; I know this because I have grown up in the area and I mingle with local HIV/AIDS support groups here made up of both young and old living with the disease, volunteering my time counselling them and helping source some nutritious food stuffs for them,” Hungwe told Anadolu Agency.

“I know the pain of watching a loved one dying from AIDS; I watched my parents dying during our days in Epworth; I’m a living testimony of how AIDS hurts,” said Hungwe.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV and AIDS prevalence in the sub-Saharan Africa. A staggering 1.3 million people, comprising 12.7% of total population, are living with HIV as of last year, according to the UNAIDS.

Hungwe said he at times helps out in the fight against AIDS through voluntarily working with some non-governmental organizations.

In 2006, Doctors Without Borders in particular, working in partnership with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care, established the Epworth Clinic, which has focused on the treatment of more than 30,000 HIV patients.

Over the years, Hungwe said he has seen the pressure mounting on healthcare facilities like Epworth Clinic, and felt he had to step in and assist.

Thanks particularly to efforts by many individuals like Hungwe, today, the number of people who are HIV positive in Zimbabwe has reduced to 15% although major gaps in treatment remain, according to the National AIDS Council.

“I don’t seek popularity, but my work should leave an indelible mark, not for pay or recognition, but for the good of humanity,” said Hungwe.

World AIDS Day is being marked on Sunday to stress the role of communities to fight the deadly disease.

The post Zimbabwe’s unsung hero fights HIV/AIDS appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Zimbabwe has become the first country in the Sub-Saharan Africa region to complete the successful enrolment of participants who are taking part in the ongoing large-scale HIV vaccine efficacy trials which are currently underway on four continents, covering 12 countries with about 12 669 study participants on board.

Zimbabwe has 500 participants  in the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) 705 also known as “lmbokodo” and the Antibody Mediated Prevention (AMP) studies which seek to find a lasting solution to a safe and effective HIV vaccine.

Speaking to The Herald at the weekend, HIV vaccine researcher at the University of Zimbabwe College of Health and Clinical Trials Research Centre, Dr Stranix Chibanda said the country finished its participants enrolment in June and they now await to monitor them as part of the research.

“The 705 study has just finished enrolling participants and now we continue to follow them up monitoring their health and checking how the immune system will react to vaccines.

“This will take a couple of years but I think in the next few years we will be able to roll out one of the vaccines for the benefit of our children today,” said Dr Chibanda.

Dr Chibanda added that while the HIV vaccine trial remained an ongoing process, Zimbabwe had shown its preparedness to take the vaccines aboard once they pass the due process.

“We are still doing the trials and not even in the next five years can we say we will be done. Maybe in 10 years, but I have noticed that the country is ready to take the vaccines once they are approved and licensed by the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe.

“However, the end of this enrolment phase facilitates the collection and analysis of trial specific data enabling researchers to answer research questions. It is in this vein that I want to applaud all those who volunteered to participate in these trials and they are commended for their selfless contribution towards this noble effort to move closer to a world without Aids,” she said.

The AMP studies is now fully enrolled with 4 625 participants from communities in the USA, Brazil, Peru, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The AMP studies are the most advanced human clinical studies to test wether a broadly neutralising antibody (bNAb) called VRCO1 which is given intravenously can prevent HIV acquisition in people.

The trials also seek to help to establish the concentrations of bNAb’s required for protection and to characterise any “breakthrough”  HIV infection to understand if it was sensitive or resistant to VRCO1.

The studies also could also clarify what level of neutralisation a vaccine or antibody-based method of HIV prevention needs to achieve or maintain to promote sustained protection.

HVTN705 or “Imbokodo”, meaning the rock in Zulu, was derived from a popular African proverb “Wathint’ abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo! meaning “You strike the women, you strike the rock!” in recognition of the strength women show in the face of challenges.

This vaccine is being administered in women in Africa with 2 637 healthy HIV negative women aged 18-35 years drawn from Zimbabwe and the neighbouring countries helping in moving ahead with the trials.

The vaccine regimen being tested in Imbokodo is based on “mosaic” immunogens — vaccine components designed to induce immune responses against a wide range of global HIV strains.

The post 500 people for new HIV drug trials appeared first on MyMedicPlus.