Compiled and edited by Martin Flynn
45, although some 15 per cent of new HIV infections are discovered among
children.
The annual cost of treatment with a cocktail of antiretrovirals is expected
to fall to around £270 from the £800 that international pharmaceutical
companies are charging in Zimbabwe.
However, independent weekly paper, The Financial Gazette commented: "Some
Aids experts and organisations representing HIV positive Zimbabweans questioned
the government's wisdom to declare the emergency when the country is in
the grip of a severe foreign currency squeeze, a devastating drought and
mounting poverty, is politically rudderless and its entire health delivery
system is crumbling."
Jefter Mxotshwa, director of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living
with HIV/Aids (ZNNP+), said it was questionable whether the six-month
emergency would result in the wider availability of antretrovirals or
the reduction of their cost locally.
"We don't even have the foreign currency," he said.
This year has been particularly bad for Zimbabweans, with poverty, political
violence and intimidation by President Mugabe's ZANU-PF party supporters,
a catastrophic drought and controversial land reforms that have seen the
violent take-over of over several thousand white-owned farms.
Many thousands of people died or were imprisoned in state sponsored violence
before, during and after the presidential elections this year, but exact
figures of the number of casualties remain unconfirmed.
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