Progress in Zimbabwe’s HIV/AIDS battle

Despite serious economic and political challenges, Zimbabwe has become only the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to significantly slow the spread of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. In a brief press statement on 10 October, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS) announced that infection rates among a particularly vulnerable group — pregnant women — declined from 24.6 per cent in 2002 to 21.3 per cent in 2004.