Fact-checked: Zimbabwe's declining HIV infections - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
January 17, 2020
By ZimFact
CLAIM: The Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment director Munyaradzi Mapingure said Zimbabwe  is “continuing to record a decline in HIV infections”.
CONCLUSION: TRUE
The claim, carried by  The Newsday of 15 January 2020,  was made at the official launch of the second HIV impact assessment programme which began in November 2019.
Available data
According to the National AIDS Council (NAC), the generation of HIV estimates has become an annual process since 2013. It has been supported by UNAIDS and its partners using a Spectrum model.
Looking at the trend from 2009, Zimbabwe recorded an average decline in both new HIV infections as well as AIDS-related deaths. However, there are years in which the rate of new infections went up.
ZimFact found data from three different sources, namely the government (through the Zimbabwe National AIDS Strategic Plan documents), the National Aids Council and UNAIDS.
A reading of the ZNASP 2011-2015 gives statistics for new infections as 63 144 in 2009, declining to 61 884 in 2014, before rising again to 65 215 in 2015, as shown in the table below:
UNAIDS also offers data on both new infections and AIDS-related deaths. The data supports the claim that Zimbabwe is recording a decline in HIV infections, with statistics for new infections showing a drop to 38 000 in 2018.
The publicly available data for new infections and AIDS-related deaths, from the three sources,  is as follows:
New HIV infections
AIDS-related deaths
Conclusion
The verdict on the claim is: TRUE.
Publicly available data shows that infections have dropped from 63 144 in 2009 to 41 000 in 2017 and 38 000 in 2018. New data will be available in 2020 from the Zimbabwe Population-based HIV impact assessment currently underway.
AIDSFEATUREDHIV