There’s an important article about the status of AIDS healthcare in Zimbabwe in the Boston Globe this week.

As stated in the piece - in all of Zimbabwe, only 24% of those HIV positive receive the AIDS drugs they need. In sub-Sahara Africa, the average is 28%.

And according to a World Health Organization April report - only 6% of children in Zimbabwe receive the treatment they need.

Some excerpts:

“Zimbabwe’s financial crisis has seen the near collapse of its health system. Hit by foreign currency shortages and hyperinflation, the government stopped taking new AIDS patients in October 2006. Many people die of AIDS complications without ever getting antiretroviral medicine….

As access to government treatment has become impossible for most, the private market is out of reach, too. A December report by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, an international advocacy group, said the number of private HIV/AIDS patients dropped from 10,000 in July to 6,000 because government policies and inflation had caused the cost of treatment to soar.

Ahmed Leher, 52, cannot bear to call his illness by its name. To him it’s “this thing” or “this rubbish.”

His weight has dropped 50 pounds in a few months. He feels angry knowing that there’s a medicine out there that could save him, yet the hospital system won’t give it to him.

“I don’t want to die young,” he said, his face anguished. “I know there’s still life. I know that with ARVs I can live for years”

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Read the full piece here.

-Virginia Simmons

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Zimbabwe, HIV/AIDS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.