Implementation of regional and international HIV prevention - SAfAIDS

5.0 HIV/AIDS INFORMATION COLLECTION,PUBLICATION AND MANAGEMENTIn order to achieve effective prevention of HIV and AIDS, it is essential that governmentshave accurate and up-to-date information about the populations that will need to accessthe different services. Collection and publication of this data is thus an important issue. Thissection examines:1. The extent to which good quality national statistics are available and relevant for theplanning and monitoring of HIV and AIDS prevention programmes;2. Whether statistics are disaggregated into useful socio-economic and regional categoriesin order to enable monitoring of the effect of policies on different groups, especially themost vulnerable; and3. The extent to which NACs have functional records management systems on the nationalHIV and AIDS response and how these records are analysed and reports made availableand kept.5.1 Availability of good quality national statistics for planning andmonitoring of HIV and prevention programmesAvailability of credible data and statistics has improved dramatically within the last five years.Recent data collection and dissemination exercises within the countries include the UNGASSreporting (2008) and the Demographic and Health Surveys (conducted 2006-2007) which,for Swaziland, used population-based testing 4 to determine HIV prevalence (Demographicand Health Survey, 2007). The DHS included samples of blood collected from a nationallyrepresentative sample of the population in their homes. This method provided directinformation on HIV infection among men, women and children. Previously, HIV prevalenceestimates were based on sentinel surveillance.32In Zambia there exist other media for ensuring availability of reliable quality statistics or dataessential for planning. The Central Statistical Office, MoH and NAC are authentic sources ofnational statistics. The country has an efficient system of collecting HIV and AIDS information.Data collected is made public through targeted publications by the Central Statistical Officevia census of population and households, the Zambia Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS),Zambia Sexual Behavioural Survey (ZSBS) among others. The MOH makes its data publicthrough the Health Management Information System (HMIS). At NAC, the National AIDSCouncil Management Information System (NACMIS) is fast becoming a source of valuableconsolidated data.Other co-ordinated publications common to both Swaziland and Zambia include the JointProgramme Reviews, Annual M&E Reports, the UNGASS report and the mid-term reviews forthe national strategies.4 Chin, who heads the WHO Statistics Office in Geneva said statistics on Africa were overblown in theirestimations but the population surveys were reliable. For example, Ethiopia was recently estimated at 5-6%prevalence rate but was later found to be only rated at 1.5%. (MmegiOnline, Vol. 24 No. 162, page 12007)