Harare city council has cancelled its mandatory HIV/AIDS counselling and testing in primary schools with immediate effect, council spokesperson has said.
Speaking to 263chat, Harare City Council spokesperson, Michael Chideme said the programme has been suspended ‘to allow full consultations with relevant stakeholders’ and once that has been done, the program will roll back.
“We have temporarily stopped the HIV/AIDS testing and counselling. This is to allow full consultations with relevant stakeholders who we had overlooked.
“Once that process is complete we are most likely going to roll the program at a full scale” said Chideme.
However, he could not be drawn into commenting why they had undertaken the program in the first place without consultations, a move which infuriated parents.
The compulsory testing was heavily criticized as pressure groups and parents view the move as a violation of the pupils rights.
According to notices given to pupils, the programme which was spearheaded by the city’s health department compelled all pupils to be tested for HIV.
“As city health department, Rujeko Clinic, sponsored by Child Protection Society, shall be visiting your school to assess the health of your students, as well as testing for HIV (consenting children only) from Grade 0 to Grade 7.
“Please accompany your child or give a written consent that we can file,’’ reads part of the notice.
Pressure groups, Zimbabwe Activists’ Association (ZAA) and Zimbabwe Women in Politics (ZWIPA) have moved in to mobilize parents against the move .
“We spoke to parents who were already at the school, Parents were given letters of consent to sign if they wanted their kids to be tested or not. About 30 parents took their kids for the exercise, with many absenting their kids from school to boycott the exercise,” ZAA leader Lynette Mudehwe said.
“As ZAA, we are worried by the government’s continued behaviour of not consulting citizens on issues regarding the children. Who did they consult on this ill-advised bogus project? Our children are not guinea pigs. Our children’s rights must be respected.”
She said parents in Dzivarasekwa rejected the exercise by making their children boycott school the whole of last week.
Meanwhile students at the University of Zimbabwe have issued a statement after comments by the institution’s Vice Chancellor Professor Levi Nyagura that 47% of students are HIV positive.
“Cognisant to the recent recklessness exhibited by the University of Zimbabwe’s vice chancellor, Professor Levi Nyagura, it is a necessity that the students take it upon themselves to defend the integrity and face of the internationally recognized institution of higher learning.
The vice chancellor last week lied to the nation and the international community, when he alleged that at least 7200 students at the University of Zimbabwe had contracted HIV, a staggering level of misinformation and misrepresentation” reads part of the statement.
Students were left furious as they say the statement by the chancellor was misguided and lacked credulity and is in contrast to what the SAYWHAT reports show.
“The vice chancellor also has to answer to his gross misrepresentation of SAYWHAT as an organization, as his claims that the organization conducted the shambolic survey that forwarded the results, were rubbished by the leadership of SAYWHAT.
The organization put it across that the statistics exposed by the vice chancellor did not originate from them, as they never undertook a survey at the University of Zimbabwe. Immediately, the vice chancellor has impeached on the trust that had been built between the organization and the University, a scenario which patriotically, we have to take collective responsibility of as a University, and apologize to the SAYWHAT organization,” reads the statement.
