Graves in Zimbabwe

It’s World AIDS day today, and Zimbabweans can enjoy a rare piece of encouraging news. This year’s AIDS epidemic update report, released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), claims that there is evidence for the first time that prevention programmes initiated are finally helping to bring down HIV prevalence in some countries, and Zimbabwe is one of the countries mentioned. Specifically, the report says this of Zimbabwe:

Recent data from the national surveillance system show a decline in HIV prevalence among pregnant women from 26% in 2002 to 21% in 2004.

A recent article in The Herald highlighted the demise of Harare Hospital. Quoting the superintendent, it depicted a picture of complete disintegration of a once prominent health facility. It was all the more credible because the government-owned press does not usually expose such failure of government institutions, and because any reader who has visited a government hospital in the past few months knows for himself or herself the heart-breaking catastrophes that occur daily. The superintendent told us that the lifts are not working, the mortuary fridges are dysfunctional and overflowing with corpses, the dialysis machines are not working, there are no surgical gloves, no bed-sheets, no drips, no medicines. The building itself is falling apart, with ceilings hanging and plumbing blocked. A scene of total dereliction and neglect.

The HIV/AIDS Cycle

The present regime's assertion that 'the economy is the land and the land is the economy', with its implicit message that a policy of fast-track land redistribution will lead to increased food production for the whole country, is undermined by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and World Health Organisation's AIDS epidemic update for 2004. Other ZANU-PF policies including the drive to achieve a monopoly control of food supplies and limiting the activities of foreign aid organisations in a position to provide food aid where it is needed, exacerbate the risks posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic on our country's food security.