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Rampant unemployment, skyrocketing inflation, food
shortages, and political instability continued to wrack Zimbabwe.
Up to 3 million people are believed to have fled to neighbouring
countries in recent years out of a population of 12 million.
Despite all of this Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
teams continue to provide medical care to thousands of patients
throughout the country.
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Empty shelves in a large supermarket in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
© Dirk-Jan Visser |
The national healthcare system, once viewed as one of the strongest in southern Africa, now threatens to collapse under the weight of this political and economic turmoil, with the most acute consequences potentially for the 1.8 million Zimbabweans living with HIV/AIDS. Currently, less than one-fourth of the people in urgent need of life-extending antiretroviral (ARV) treatment receive it. This translates into an average of 3,000 deaths every week. And the prospects for a further scale up of the national AIDS program are dim.
Trained medical professionals are leaving the country, the government program for HIV/AIDS treatment is oversubscribed, and the lack of ARV supplies has stifled further expansion. Patients often face obstacles to reach hospitals or clinics because of high fuel and transport prices.
MSF continues to provide free medical care to about 29,000 people
living with HIV/AIDS in Bulawayo, Tsholotsho (Matabeleland North
province), Buhera (Manicaland province), Epworth (Mashonaland East
province), and Gweru (Midlands province). Out of these,
MSF is supporting more than 16,000 patients on Antiretroviral treatment.
During the last years, MSF has put in place a strategy of decentralisation
of patients from the hospitals to the peripheral clinics improving
their access to treatment.
Floods, cholera and other watery diarrhoeal outbreaks
have hit the country in the last months. In recent emergency interventions,
MSF has been addressing diarrhoea and cholera cases in various
locations in Mashonaland East province with some 250 cholera cases
treated so far. In Kariba (Mashonaland West province), MSF has
provided medical material and training to local health personnel
in order to help respond to a cholera outbreak. MSF is also giving
support to the health structures in Mashonaland West and Masvingo
provinces and in Bulawayo to respond to diarrhoeas outbreaks. It
has also assisted flood victims in the Save river area and in Tsholotsho
district.
The difficulties of the permanent and transitory population around
the border town of Beitbridge (Matabeleland South) - the entry
point to South Africa for thousands of migrants- have collapsed
the local health structures. MSF is therefore launching a new project
of support to health care for its population, both residents and
migrants.
MSF’s ability to care for more people in need is hindered
by the lack of trained health workers, restrictions on which staff
can prescribe ARV drugs, and stricter administrative requirements
for international staff to work in the country. At the same time,
Zimbabweans are feeling the health impact of degraded or nonexistent
water-and-sanitation systems.
MSF has been helping to alleviate the devastating effects of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic since 2002, which at that time had a prevalence
rate among adults of 33% (according to UNAIDS figures). This disease
is not only a burden on the people and families of Zimbabwe, but
also on the economy of the country. The prevalence today is still
one of the highest in the world, officially 15.6%, but still a
lot higher in some areas of the country.
MSF is currently working in Zimbabwe with around 400 Zimbabwean and
50 international field staff. MSF has been working in Zimbabwe since
2000.
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other articles on Zimbabwe
» Read about MSF providing essential healthcare to Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa |
