[afro-nets] Health Rights Emergency in Zimbabwe: Act Now

Dear Colleagues,

The Zimbabwean public health system has collapsed, and PHR needs your help to urge the US and the international community to take action.

In the last month, almost every hospital and clinic in the country has closed for lack of medicine, supplies, water and/or electricity. A cholera epidemic is sweeping through Zimbabwe and killing hundreds. Each day, pregnant women and newborns who need emergency care go without. An doctor at Harare hospital described the situation as a "disaster of unimaginable proportions."

The health situation in Zimbabwe-which has been declining for years-is now untenable. The international community must take urgent action to save lives.

Sign our petition TODAY urging Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to take decisive action to save lives in Zimbabwe by going to
http://actnow-phr.org/campaign/zimbabwe/8ixb7sd49end5xb?.

Our peers-doctors, nurses, public health leaders and medical students in Zimbabwe-are fighting for their patients' lives. Nearly a thousand health professionals rallied in protest this week to call for more medicine and supplies and clean water in the taps. But truckloads of riot police, wielding shields and clubs, broke up and dispersed the peaceful demonstration.

Share this with friends and colleagues <http://actnow-phr.org/campaign/zimbabwe/forward/8ixb7sd49end5xb?&gt; so we can reach 3000 signatures by this weekend: our friends in Zimbabwe need help, and they are relying on you.

Thank you.

Sarah Kalloch
Outreach and Constituency Organizing Director
Physicians for Human Rights
2 Arrow St. Suite 301
Cambridge, MA 02138
+1 (617) 301-4235
http://www.physiciansforhumanrights.org
mailto:skalloch@phrusa.org