By MILDRED KATONGO –

KITWE District AIDS coordination advisor has attributed the high HIV/AIDS infection rate in the district to the mushrooming boarding houses.
Regina Katongo said during the Kitwe District AIDS Task force (DATF) stakeholders meeting yesterday that the mushrooming boarding houses in the district were partly responsible for the escalating HIV/AIDS infection rate.
This follows the statistics released by the DATF office given at the previous AIDS stakeholders’ meeting that 1,000 people out of the 8,000 undergoing HIV tests came out positive on  a monthly basis in the district.
Ms Katongo said the district had observed that some of the boarding houses had been turned into brothels.
She said these had become part of the drivers of HIV infection rate as students accommodated there lacked proper guidance.
“As a district, we have received reports that a number of colleges that have come up have no accommodation for their students. This has forced students to be renting boarding houses and as it is, those students are not guided,” she said.
Ms Katongo said the district had lagged behind in terms of sensitisation on the dangers of HIV/AIDS as evidenced from the high HIV infection rate.
She appealed to the local authority to regularly inspect and ensure that only authorised boarding houses were the ones operating.
Ms Katongo said there was need for all stakeholders to put in more effort to help reduce the number of the infection rate.
“The HIV infection rate in our district is very high, it is everyone’s concern, let us not just sit but find means and ways of preventing and reduce the infection rate,” she said.