SIA links 1428 to ART services in Chibombo & Mumbwa Districts

SIA links 1428 to ART services in Chibombo & Mumbwa Districts

Sport In Action (SIA) joins Zambia and the rest of the world in commemorating World AIDS Day 2018 under the theme, “Know your status.”

The theme, which encourages everyone to know their HIV status, comes at a time when SIA is part of the USAID/PEPFAR-funded Zambia Community HIV Prevention Project (Z-CHPP) five-year cooperative agreement led by Pact to accelerate progress towards Zambia’s goal of reducing new HIV infections. From October 2017 to October 2018, SIA, the sport-for-development organisation has linked 1,428 people to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) services in Chibombo and Mumbwa districts in the Central province.

Through our sports activities, ways are explored on creating an enabling environment and encouraging people to know their status. We have always stated that sport plays a very important role in the prevention of new HIV infections, and this year’s Worlds AIDS Day theme could not have come at a better time than this. We have used sport as one of the best and effective approaches to prevent new infections and effect behavioural change, and we are committed to contributing to the success of the Z-CHPP project, which aims to achieve high saturation of interventions, focusing  first on rapid scale-up of HIV testing services (HTS) and reaching People Living with HIV who are out of the treatment cascade, then expanding the coverage and scope of activities including a comprehensive package of interventions to reach priority high risk populations.

We hope to double the numbers and ensure that we reach Adolescent girls and young women as well as their partners, PLHIV, discordant couples and migrant workers through sport.

About the Z-CHPP project
The USAID/PEPFAR-funded Zambia Community HIV Prevention Project (Z-CHPP) is a five-year cooperative agreement led by Pact to accelerate progress towards Zambia’s goal of reducing new HIV infections. The project supports Zambia to reach the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 2020 goal of having 90% of all people living with HIV (PLHIV) know their status, 90% of those who know their HIV positive status receive sustained anti-retroviral therapy (ART), and 90% of those on ART achieve viral suppression.