ZIMBABWE: Politicians Urged To Spearhead Fight Against AIDs

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, May 15 1998 (IPS) - Zimbabwe’s health authorities, worried by a crippling high HIV infection rate, are urging political leaders to spearhead the fight against the spread of the killer virus.

“Political leaders have been slow in giving maximum support,” says Everisto Marowa, coordinator of the National Aids Programme of the Ministry of Health. “They have been more in the background… There is no more room for rhetoric. Concrete action, up to the grassroot level, is needed.”

Marowa was speaking Thursday at a May 11-15 workshop here on AIDs, touted as the start of a period of collective determination to contain the disease.

In a region that has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates, joint effort looks like the only viable solution, participants noted. “Not only should political help come from the national level, but there is also a need to combine forces rather than go it alone as individual countries,” Marowa argued.

“Sometimes we need to come together as SADC, OAU and not only just discuss in boardrooms but come up with implementable programmes,” said Marowa. “That way we can mobilise resources as an economic grouping as political groups. That way it becomes more practical.”

The two organisations, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), have often expressed concern about the spread of the disease in Africa.

While Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole have high HIV rates, Marowa says no individual country has placed the virus on its national health plan.

The Zimbabwean health authorities estimate that some 1.4 million people in Zimbabwe have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, while 350,000 have full-blown AIDS. The country’s population is around 12.5 million.

The virus has caused the death of some 200,000 Zimbabweans people since it was first detected here some 13 years ago. At the moment, an average of 700 people are dying of HIV/AIDS related illnesses per week in this Southern African nation, as against 500 a week about four years ago.

“There is no magical remedy to the disease,” commented Marowa. “We need to be open in Zimbabwe with a view to eliciting support and positive action.”

Although the anti-HIV/AIDS campaign has gathered momentum in Zimbabwe, a lot more needs to be done and that was one of the aims of this week’s exposition.

“We want to create a renewed awareness and understanding about HIV and AIDS,” explained Marowa. “There is a need to energise this momentum to do better.”

To achieve this, said Dr David Parirenyatwa, the deputy minister of health, the government will establish an AIDS co- ordinating mechanism that will place the disease on the national