HIV/AIDS: Private Groups Rally To Combat Zimbabwe's Epidemic
------------------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#2
"Africa's response to AIDS is often depicted to be as dysfunc-
tional as its economy, just another example of what some AIDS
workers call 'Afro-pessimism' -- only bad news comes out of Af-
rica," according to the Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9946/schoofs.shtml . In an
ongoing series on HIV/AIDS in Africa, the Village Voice notes
"that just a handful of African governments have mobilized a
response remotely commensurate with the magnitude of the epi-
demic, which has already slashed life expectancy by as much as
20 years in some countries."
"I have found the most unacceptable denial and apathy in Af-
rica," said Elhadj Sy, who heads the southern and eastern Af-
rica team for UNAIDS. "But on the other hand, the most incredi-
ble responses to HIV have been developed here. We live in this
contradiction of extremes."
Nowhere are these extremes more pronounced than in Zimbabwe,
which was relatively prosperous, with no foreign debt and a
currency stronger than the US dollar. Now, the economy is in
free-fall, and a quarter of adults aged 15 to 49 are infected
with HIV. The virus is killing more than 65,000 people a year.
Yet the director of Zimbabwe's National AIDS Coordination Pro-
gram, Everisto Marowa, says government spending on AIDS preven-
tion has, in real terms, "certainly not increased and probably
declined" over the last five years. Last month, the government
announced a special AIDS tax, but even AIDS workers criticized
the idea because the government provided no plans on how it
would spend the money. Corruption and mismanagement are rife in
Zimbabwe, and previous special levies have disappeared with no
accounting, the Village Voice reports.
Meanwhile, the government admits it is spending more than 70
times the budget of its AIDS program on its unpopular military
intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though
independent observers estimate the war costs many times more
than that.
Yet private groups are responding vigorously to the epidemic.
"In every province we have member organizations," says Thembeni
Mahlangu, director of the Zimbabwe AIDS Network. "They were of-
ten started by a church or NGO [nongovernmental organization]
and sometimes just by individuals."
The Insiza Godlwayo AIDS Council (IGAC) specializes in home-
based care and orphan support, and has recently launched a
youth prevention campaign. The leadership of most AIDS programs
"is composed of professionals," says Lucia Malemane, a nurse
with Zimbabwe's Matabeleland AIDS Council, who taught Insiza
about AIDS. "But with IGAC, it's just ordinary peasant farm-
ers."
Most community programs lack any but the most basic medicines.
Certainly they cannot afford the expensive regimens that have
reduced the AIDS death rate in wealthy countries. Without ef-
fective drugs, home-based care can seem like little more than
home-based death. "With the disease mowing down so many people,
and with poverty making volunteering so burdensome, it remains
to be seen whether such homespun efforts can endure for the
decades that may well pass before an AIDS vaccine is devel-
oped," the Village Voice contends.
"But for the moment, thousands of ordinary Africans are defying
all odds to care for their sick, raise their orphans, and try
to slow the virus's spread. If governments finally mobilize
against this disease, they will find some of the best and most
energetic AIDS strategies right under their noses" (Mark
Schoofs, Village Voice, 23 Nov. 99).
--
Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org'.