JOHANNESBURG, Zambia- 4 June 2009- KC Forum-The National AIDS Council, the ministry of Health, Health communications partnership Zambia, Zambia centre for communications programmes, Society for family Health with support from the United States Agency for international development (USAID), UNFPA and Soul City are developing a national multimedia campaign to prevent HIV transmission through multiple concurrent partnerships in Zambia.

The launch of One love Kwasila is scheduled for the 16th of June 2009 at Arcades shopping mall in Lusaka.

Multiple concurrent partnerships as recongnized by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), UNAIDS and by the government of Zambia as one of the key drivers of the HIV pandemic in the region and particularly in the country. Zambia’s national HIV prevention strategy calls for the intensification and accelerations of prevention of sexual transmission through targeted, cultural acceptable, and evidence based social and behavior change communications interventions with standardised messages that address multiple concurrent partnerships.

What are multiple concurrent partnerships?

MCP means that a man or woman has more than one sexual partner at the same time period and the partners can overlap for weeks, months or years. When we have more than one sexual partner in the same time period, we became part of a sexual network. If someone in the sexual becomes infected with HIV, it increases the chance of the infection spreading to everyone else who is part of the network.

The purpose of One love Kwasila campaign is to provide basic information about the risk posed by Multiple Concurrent Partnerships, provoke thoughts and dialogues and increase self-risk perceptions. The primary targets audience is married men aged between 25-50 years. The secondary target audience is women between 15-45 years (wives & girl friend of the primary target audience)