AIDS in Zimbabwe kills 4,000 a week

By Lance Guma
29 September 2005

Four thousand Zimbabweans are said to be dying every week from AIDS related illnesses and reports that public hospitals lack essential chemicals to conduct HIV tests are set to worsen the situation. A shortage of foreign currency has meant an inability to import reagents for the testing kits. Experts say to even talk about a collapsing heath system would be a waste of time. The infrastructure collapsed long back and what remains is just a health system that is itself in intensive care.

While the population suffers in extreme poverty, a basic course of anti-retroviral drugs for those on treatment is Z$1,2 million a month with some other complicated treatment plans shooting up to Z$10 million a month. The economic downturn is therefore effectively killing more people as disease combines with starvation to decimate the population.

As if that was not enough, doctors who have gone on several strikes are bitter with government for awarding them pay hikes equivalent to three loaves of bread. Government has offered them increases of Z$98,000 a month while a loaf of bread costs Z$32,000. The Hospital Doctors Association is already consulting its members with a view to staging more strikes over the paltry salaries. Doctors currently earn Z$5,7 million per month, a figure much less than what a vegetable vendor can make in a month.

To highlight the gap, doctors are demanding almost 900 percent increments to their salaries. Most doctors are flocking to neighbouring countries and the brain drain is costing the country dearly in all sectors. Basic medicines are also proving scarce in most hospitals, setting the stage for a real disaster in the making.

Zimbabwean journalist Lionel Saungweme says the Nkayi bus disaster, which he covered, served as an example of the non-existent health delivery system. There were only a few ambulances to carry those needing urgent treatment and even those who got to hospital were given painkillers alone, as there were no other medicines in store. 18 people lost their lives in the tragic accident but Saungweme believes given a better response unit, more lives could have been saved.