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Zimbabwe
to put 40,000 more on AIDS drugs by year-end
Reuters
May 29, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSL2920218320070529
HARARE (Reuters)
- Zimbabwe will put 40,000 more people on life saving anti-retroviral
drugs by the end of the year despite an economic crisis that has
hobbled the country's health care, state media reported on Tuesday.
The southern
African country is among the worst hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic,
killing more than 3,000 people every week and accounting for 70
percent of hospital admissions.
But Zimbabwe,
in the grips of a deep recession, has also become one of the few
AIDS bright spots on the continent after its HIV prevalence rate
declined to 18.1 percent last year from 25 percent six years ago.
Health Minister
David Parirenyatwa said the number of people receiving the life-prolonging
medicines has increased from 60,000 in December to 80,000 this month
but that the government would add another 40,000 patients by the
end of the year.
"Currently
the number of people on ARVs has grown to 80,000 since December
last year and we hope to achieve our target of getting 120,000 by
the end of the year," Parirenyatwa told the official Herald
newspaper.
Parirenyatwa
said that at least 300,000 people living with HIV/AIDS were in urgent
need of ARVs.
Zimbabwe's drive
to increase access to ARVs has been hampered by a severe shortage
of foreign currency, itself a sign of an economic crisis that has
pushed inflation past 3,700 percent and increased poverty levels.
The crisis has
been particularly felt in the health sector, where basic drugs are
in short supply while strikes for better pay by doctors and nurses
have worsened the situation.
President Robert
Mugabe -- who says Zimbabwe is showing the way for Africa in the
fight against HIV/AIDS -- rejects charges of mismanagement and blames
the West for sabotaging the economy as punishment for seizing white-owned
farms to distribute to blacks.
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