The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established an office in Zimbabwe in 2000, with an initial focus on HIV interventions and health systems strengthening through the Leadership and Investment for Fighting an Epidemic (LIFE) Initiative. CDC’s support expanded in 2011 to include interventions for malaria under the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative. CDC works with Zimbabwe and local organizations to support health systems strengthening and increase access to and quality of HIV and malaria interventions.
CDC Zimbabwe success stories
Site Improvement with Zimbabwe Intensive Monitoring and Support
In the past year, CDC developed a novel strategy for site improvement.
PrEP Success Story in Mazowe
A young woman learns how to prevent HIV.
Improving Access and Optimizing Client-Centered and Friendly Services for Key Populations in Harare District
Comprehensive and friendly services offered through 13 CDC-supported facilities.
The Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (ZIMPHIA) Survey
Understanding the impact of Zimbabwe’s national programs on the HIV epidemic.
CDC impact in Zimbabwe
HIV
- Expanded to 65 sites cervical cancer screening and treatment services to women living with HIV. The numbers of women getting screened using visual inspection with acetic acid and cervicography (VIAC) have continued to increase over time.
- Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are disproportionately affected by HIV. In October 2020, CDC Zimbabwe began the implementation of the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) program that provides a comprehensive HIV package including counseling and PrEP provisions to AGYW.
- Implemented a key populations (KP) program in Harare and Mazowe to strengthen the capacity of public sector facilities to provide comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment and care services targeting men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people and people who inject drugs. To strengthen linkages and referrals to complementary services including psycho-social and legal services for key populations.
Tuberculosis
- PEPFAR and CDC have prioritized TB Prevention Treatment (TPT) scale-up as a strategy to end TB. From 2019 through 2021, 235, 782 PLHIV have started and successfully completed TPT.
- Streamlined TB preventive targets to match those set by the UN high level mission (UNHLM) on TB, and the country has a target of 100% TPT coverage among all eligible patients over the next 3 years.
- To optimize TB diagnosis among PLHIV CDC Zimbabwe will procure and distribute urine Lateral Flow-Lipoarabinomannan kits to 462 CDC supported facilities.
Laboratory Capacity Building
- Viral Load (VL) and Early Infant Diagnosis (EID)testing capacity scaled-up in 68 laboratories (13 testing and 55 referral ), from 6 laboratories in 2016, with support from CDC laboratory program through a robust mentorship program, integrated sample transportation system, strengthening the clinic-laboratory interface (CLI), and optimizing the Laboratory information management systems (LIMS).
- CDC provides technical assistance to laboratories to attain ISO 15189 accreditation.
Surveillance and Health information systems
- Transition from paper-based to electronic systemstowards developing a comprehensive Electronic Health Record and LIMS continued in 2020. The long-term goal is to build integrated electronic data collection systems that will feed into the District Health Information System (DHIS-2) national repository.
- Released ZIMPHIA 2019-2020 in December 2020. This PEPFAR initiative, implemented in collaboration with CDC, showed the face of the epidemic has changed in Zimbabwe as the country met the second UNAIDS Fast Track (97% on ART) and the third (90.3% have suppressed viral load) goals.
Global Immunization
- CDC supports the Inter-Country Support Team, East and Southern Africa (ESA) based in Zimbabwe. CDC provides technical support on the elimination of measles, the control of rubella/congenital rubella syndrome and maternal and neonatal tetanus.
- In alignment with the global WHO Immunization Agenda 2030, all member states in the East and Southern Africa region have adopted a goal for both Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) and for measles elimination.
Malaria
- Malaria cases and deaths increased in 2020 in comparison to the previous year. The President Malaria Initiative/CDC advisor provides support for a wide range of major malaria interventions including vector control, pharmaceutical and supply chain management, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation, and social and behavioral change communication.
Extramural Management
- CDC Zimbabwe increased local partner funding from 6.4% to the current 22%. The Extramural Management Branchimproved the capacity of local partners to manage cooperative agreements.