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Harare's
application for AIDS funds turned down
ZimOnline
November
13, 2006
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=457
HARARE - The Global Fund to fight malaria,
tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS has turned down Zimbabwe’s application
for funding, a development health experts say could cripple the
southern African country’s fight against Aids.
Harare, without foreign currency to
import basic medicines and Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs, had hoped
to use cash from the Fund to expand its small ARV distribution programme
by at least 80 percent, according to senior officials at the Ministry
of Health and Child Welfare.
Only 40 000 people are accessing ARVs
from the state and from private sources compared to more than 600
000 in urgent need of the life-prolonging drugs.
"State-run ARV programmes are
already facing viability problems with some patients being forced
to miss some doses because there are no drugs," said one official,
who did not want to be named because he did not have permission
to disclose such information to the Press.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa
was not immediately available for comment on the matter while officials
at the Global Fund’s offices in Harare said the reasons for the
Fund’s rejection of Zimbabwe’s application would only be made known
at a later date.
But our sources said the Fund had also
told Harare it could not appeal against the withholding of funding
and that it could only reapply next year.
Although Zimbabwe is only one of two
sub-Saharan countries – the other one is Uganda - to be able to
reverse HIV infections amongst its population, the country is still
among the worst hit by the disease which kills at least 3 000 Zimbabweans
ever week.
Severe food shortages and a seven-year
economic recession, critics blame on mismanagement by President
Robert Mugabe’s government have helped compound the HIV/AIDS pandemic
in the country.
Established in 2002, the Global Fund
is one of the biggest organisations in the world that provides funding
to poor countries to fight malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS – responsible
for most deaths in Asia and Africa. - ZimOnline
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