WBCG cross-border wellness initiatives thrive

The Walvis Bay Corridor Group (WBCG), under its Wellness Project, recently handed over two Roadside Wellness Clinics situated in Sesheke, Zambia and Namacunde, Angola to the countries’ Health Ministries. The clinics were under WBCG management from 2012 and 2018 respectively.

WBCG Wellness Project Manager, Edward Shivute explained in an interview earlier this month that an agreement was signed between WBCG and the SADC Secretariat in September 2012. WBCG, in collaboration with North Star Alliance, was to establish and manage operations of these cross-border clinics as part of the Global Fund HIV/AIDS Cross Border Initiative.

The clinics services are similar to the WBCG’s roadside wellness clinics, offering HIV counseling and Testing (HCT), CD4 count measurements and tests, HIV treatment and care services as well as STI screening and treatment and risk reduction counseling and PrEP services. They further do hypertension and blood pressure testing, glucose (sugar/diabetes) rapid testing, cholesterol rapid testing, haemoglobin rapid testing and TB screening. The clinics also offer basic primary health care which includes social behaviour change and communication tools, and do referrals to Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) services

Shivute said that the people recorded to most frequently visit these clinics are truck drivers, sex workers and cross-border communities. “It has always been our mission to aid public and private stakeholders to reach critical mobile populations at the heart of major health and safety issues.”

The two clinics were handed over to the Ministries of Health in Zambia and Angola on the 1^st of January this year, to continue operating them with direct operational funding from their Governments. “WBCG will continue to provide technical support as required to ensure a seamless flow of services across the Southern African Development Community (SADC)”, Shivute said.