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Govt's bungling playing Russian roulette with people's lives
Comment, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
November 19, 2006

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=21&id=5288

ZIMBABWE’S uncaring conduct and bungling — and not Western imposed sanctions — showed last week how they are the greatest threats to the lives of ordinary people.

The Global Fund, which provides funding in the fight against malaria, tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS last week, announced it had turned down Zimbabwe’s application for funding. It dashed the hopes of thousands of people, who expected that approval would enable increased access to treatment drugs.

While the reasons for the rejection were not given immediately, the explanations for the Fund’s decision are no secret. The establishment of the AIDS levy was a positive move. It showed a country’s determination to demonstrate to the world that despite limited resources, it had a specific, measurable, achievable and realistic response to the pandemic.

Any funding organisation looking at such a local response to the crisis would be swayed to pour resources into the country to buttress the government’s efforts. But that is not Zimbabwe’s position.

The AIDS levy is a magnet of controversy. Concerns have been raised about levels of transparency in the way the levy is disbursed with teachers throughout the country questioning who the beneficiaries are because their members have failed to access ARVs, despite paying levies regularly.

There are also damning accusations of the ruling party bigwigs raiding the levy and elbowing out the majority, lending credence to allegations that so many of the schemes set up by the government, purportedly in the interests of ordinary Zimbabweans are, in fact, a camouflage.

Concern over rampant abuse, by politicians, of Anti-Retroviral drugs donated by the international community and failure to put a stop to the practice, are at the core of the Global Fund’s rejection of Zimbabwe’s application for the Sixth Round.

As a consequence of the abuse of the drugs, external organisations involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS are channeling drugs through church-related health institutions. Such a shift is a damning vote-of-no-confidence in the structures set up by government to roll out provision of ARVs.

Although the Deputy Minister of Health, Edwin Muguti, was recently forced to recant his damning assessment of the National Aids Council, which administers the Aids levy, the consensus was that his condemnation of the National Aids Council (NAC) reflected general public perception of NAC’s misplaced priorities and how vulnerable it was to political interference.

The bulk of the funding Zimbabwe had applied to the Global Fund would have gone to scaling up supply of ARVs but rejection of the application means that only about 40 000 people out of more than 600 000 people who actually need ARVs can continue to access the life-prolonging drugs from state-run programmes and in the private sector.

The rejection effectively scuttles any plans to put thousands of infected people on ARVs and the government must shoulder the blame for jeopardising the lives of people who are in urgent need of treatment.

A dark cloud hangs over this year’s World Aids Day, which is three weeks away because there is little to cheer when more than 550 000 known cases have no access to drugs.

Approval of Zimbabwe’s application would have been the ideal Christmas present for hundreds of Zimbabweans in need of treatment, but the government’s avaricious and reckless approach means it would rather sacrifice lives in order to guarantee its comfort.

The alternative is for the international community to increase support for the supply of the ARVs through church mission hospitals and various other voluntary organisations that have set up clinics for people who need treatment. This way the level of government interference will be minimised, while those in need have access to the drugs.

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