Zimbabwe's bad practice: 3,500 dead each week as meltdown looms

The gap between HIV rhetoric and reality in Zimbabwe has become a chasm. And it is a chasm into which hundreds of thousands of people are falling.

This was the year we were told the government would roll out free antiretroviral drugs to nearly 200,000 of the worst-hit Aids sufferers.

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At the first national conference on HIV/Aids in 2004, President Robert Mugabe spoke not only of the need for ARVs but also of the need for "comprehensive programmes for Aids care that include access to counselling and treatment of opportunistic infections, community-based care and orphan support."

But, this year, Zimbabwe has been judged by the World Health Organisation to have the lowest life expectancy in the world. Last month, the cemeteries of the capital, Harare, were declared full. This week more than 3,500 people will die of HIV-related illness and tests on post-natal mothers have found infection rates of 70 per cent. A country whose population at its last census numbered 12 million people is dying in droves; its health system is in total disarray and malnutrition is a daily struggle for the majority of the country.

The reality of the government's Aids policy is perhaps better reflected by Didymus Mutasa, the current Minister of State Security. He has said: "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle; we don't want all these extra people."

The government's approach to the public health catastrophe is characterised by hypocrisy, indifference and denial. Soaring infection rates have been compounded by a state-sponsored economic meltdown that has provoked a famine in one of Africa's most fertile countries. Much of the country is forced to subsist on one meagre meal a day and ARVs, even if they were supplied, cannot be taken on an empty stomach.

Hospital dispensaries in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, are empty. The hospitals themselves are almost empty as unofficial fees have put health care out of the range of ordinary people.

A senior doctor who has watched the disintegration of the health system said: "They [the government] are still living in denial or cloud cuckooland when it comes to Aids. They talk of waiting lists of six to nine months for ARVs. The infected don't live that long."