CLAIM: APPROXIMATELY 90% of women aged between 16 and 50 plus tested for HIV in Bulawayo during the month of June this year tested positive of the virus
SOURCE: Newsday
VERDICT: False
The NewsDay set the cat among the pigeons with its story headlined, ‘Alarming statistics on HIV positive women in Bulawayo’.
The story begins with the claim that ‘approximately 90% of women between 16 and 50 plus tested for HIV in Bulawayo during the month of June this year tested positive of the virus’.
The story went on to state that, ‘Of the 243 women, 48 tested negative and 195 were positive. Numbers of women from the ages of 25-49 tested for HIV were 2 172. Of the 2 172 women, 57 tested negative and 2 115 were positive.
“Numbers of women from the ages of 50+ tested for HIV were 569. Of the 569 women, 238 tested negative and 331 were positive,” the council report said’.
The NewsDay newspaper also went on to post the story on its X account, where it garnered 122,000 views.
It went viral on various platforms as soon as it was published. It was published and posted by other online papers, blogs, You tubers and Tiktokkers.
Another newspaper, the Chronicle, had in late July reported that 344 out of 480 women tested positive for HIV, based also on a council report.
Council Report
The article was based on a council report of 7 August 2024. On page 223, it has a section titled ‘Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and AIDS’.
In this section it gives statistics for ‘people receiving treatment in the 2nd quarter of 2024’ and ‘as at June 2024’. This is important to note as it shows that to begin with, these are not June statistics but are cumulative.
The table under which the HIV statistics are given, includes Visual inspection with acetic acid and cervicography (VIAC)Tests results, suspicious cancer and number of clients screened.
Following the NewsDay article, the Bulawayo City Council then released a press statement addressing these statistics. In the statement it says that its report ‘was taken out of context’ and is ‘not representative of the HIV positivity rates in general among the Bulawayo population but skewed programmatically towards HIV positive women attending clinics for cervical cancer screening’.
Some felt that this was too little too late on the part of council, ‘Why does this feel like firefighting PR stunt 101.On this one i will believe abstracts – until we are furnished with stats and algorithms from the Health department’.
Bigger picture
According to the National AIDS Council, the current HIV prevalence rate stands at 11.9%.
The most recent, 2020, Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (ZIMPHIA) recorded an annual incidence of HIV among adults (ages 15 years and older) in Zimbabwe at 0.38%, which corresponds to approximately 31,000 new cases of HIV per year among adults.
Be in the Know, an organisation that reports on HIV, puts Zimbabwe HIV new infections at 17,000 for 2022, lower than 0.38% from 2020.
UNAIDS, on the other hand, puts the number of new infections at 15,000 for 2023.
UNAIDS, unlike NAC, has a lower HIV prevalence rate – similar to the one quoted by the BCC press statement – at 10.5%.
Playing with the numbers
The NewsDay article claims that 2,641 women tested positive for HIV in June. The implication in the article is that these were new infections.
The council in its press statement corrects the implication that this was a representational sample, saying this was a sample ‘skewed programmatically towards HIV positive women’. It says this was ‘screening for HIV positive women already on Antiretroviral treatment’. This, unfortunately, is not clear from the report, which gives the impression that these were new infections.
2,641 new infections in one month, in one city and in one demographic would be alarming and is not supported by any other source of data, especially with the national new HIV infections for all adults, at 15,000 for 2023.
Conclusion
The claim that ‘approximately 90% of women between 16 and 50 plus tested for HIV in Bulawayo during the month of June this year tested positive of the virus’ has been rated as false. The journalist, according to BCC, missed the context that these were not new infections but HIV positive women already on ART. However, in the journalist’s defense, this is not clearly spelt out in the council report although the figures were so alarming that they called for more investigation and due diligence before the newspapers published.
