ZIMBABWE is under mounting pressure to close critical gaps in its HIV response after health officials warned that 2 813 children could contract the virus this year, highlighting weaknesses in paediatric treatment, antenatal care and testing that campaigners say the government can no longer afford to ignore.
The projection, disclosed this week by Angela Mushavi, the national coordinator for prevention of mother-to-child transmission and paediatric HIV care and treatment, has intensified calls for urgent action on child treatment coverage, which sits at just 53% compared with 98% among adults. Health advocates and officials are now turning their attention to what needs to change — and how quickly.
Itai Rusike, the executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, said the figures should prompt renewed domestic investment, warning that Zimbabwe cannot rely on donor support to protect the gains made over the years.
“We need to protect the gains achieved over the years by investing domestic funding in the fight against HIV and Aids, especially now, given the significant funding withdrawals by major donors,” he said.
At the centre of the concern is a widening gap between adult and paediatric ART coverage, alongside antenatal care attendance that has slipped to 85% against a 95% national target.
Mushavi said the shortfall was allowing new infections to occur even among women who test negative early in pregnancy, particularly adolescents and young women, who make up 51% of antenatal care attendees.
“We have a problem. We have to look after these young girls and call for greater access to pre-exposure prophylaxis and other prevention interventions,” Mushavi said.
Testing gaps are compounding the problem. Syphilis testing among pregnant women fell from 95% to 81% in the first quarter of 2026 due to shortages of dual HIV-syphilis test kits, while hepatitis B testing remains critically low at 22%, despite modest improvement in treatment coverage for hepatitis B-positive mothers.
The government has responded by prioritising 20 districts – accounting for roughly half of the country’s HIV-positive pregnant women – for targeted interventions ahead of the next Global Fund grant. Officials say the focus will be on expanding ART coverage, strengthening early infant diagnosis, improving treatment retention, and tackling social drivers of infection such as child marriage, stigma and gender-based violence. A new triple-elimination plan for 2027–30 is also being developed with support from UNAids, Unicef, the WHO and the National Aids Council.
The push comes as Zimbabwe continues to absorb the shock of the 2025 international funding freezes and aid cuts, which disrupted parts of the country’s HIV programme and raised lasting questions about the sustainability of services once underwritten by external partners.
Separately, the Health and Child Care ministry moved this week to reassure Zimbabweans returning from South Africa that their access to ART will not be interrupted. The ministry said 42 501 government-assisted and self-repatriated returnees had been screened at points of entry, including the Beitbridge Reception and Support Centre, as of August 24, with those needing care receiving an immediate treatment bridge before being linked to facilities in their home districts.
With approximately 1,23 million Zimbabweans currently on ART – about 95% of people living with HIV – officials say the coming months will test whether the targeted district interventions and renewed domestic funding commitments can meaningfully close the gaps before the 2026 infection projections become a reality.
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