As the HIV and Aids pandemic continues to tear into the socio-economic thread of the country, officials in Mulanje District have conceded that the effects have not spared the district.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s Director of Planning and Development, Humphrey Gondwe, said this during a candlelight memorial service which the district organised to remember people who died of HIV related illnesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the district council, we are not only concerned but also affected in a number of ways, a lot of people are still contracting the virus and that is putting pressure on us when we are budgeting for expenses at council level,\u201d said Gondwe.<\/p>\n
The event, which took place at Mulanje Prison, was aimed at among others reaching out to the inmates with HIV related information to help keep them safe from the virus.<\/p>\n
Gondwe advised the inmates to abstain from all activities that would likely terminate their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that inmates of opposite sex are put in separate cells, but we also know that sometimes male inmates indulge in sexual activities with fellow male inmates, I would urge you to stop because in that way you are risking your lives apart from harassing your friends. I would urge you to persevere and stay away from such temptations,\u201d added Gondwe.<\/p>\n
Mulanje district Aids Coordinator, Charles Lomoni, disclosed that the HIV prevalence rate in the district stands at 17.1 percent as indicated in a survey conducted in 2010.<\/p>\n
Lomoni also justified the setting of the event in prison; saying inmates are in most cases left out when disseminating information about HIV and Aids.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe HIV situation here is pathetic but we are doing everything possible to get the figures reduced, mainly there are a lot of sexual activities taking place in areas surrounding tea estates in the district that\u2019s where you find high cases apart from Mulanje being one of the places that attract a lot of people.<\/p>\n
\u201cCultural issues are also playing a role as other people are still practising old beliefs that risk their lives because they end up contracting the virus,\u201d said Lomoni.<\/p>\n
Deputy Chairperson of Mulanje District Council, Abgail Khamisa, who graced the occasion, urged authorities working towards HIV management in the district to put all the money they receive to good use in a bid to win the fight against the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the HIV and Aids pandemic continues to tear into the socio-economic thread of the country, officials in Mulanje District have conceded that the effects have not spared the district. The district\u2019s Director of Planning and Development, Humphrey Gondwe, said this during a candlelight memorial service which the district organised to remember people who died […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27017,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27012\/revisions\/27017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}