Britain hails Zim health sector’s success

By Paidamoyo Chipunza
DESPITE limiting donor funding and imposing illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, Britain has acknowledged that Zimbabwe has been one of the most successful countries in arre-sting HIV prevalence.
British researchers recently said Zimbabwe had the fas-test declining HIV prevalence rate in the world and urged other countries to learn from Zimbabwe.
The researchers said this in a study in which they explo-red why HIV prevalence declined in Zimbabwe from 29 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 2007.
That decade marks the beginning and the highest point of the Western onslaught on Zimbabwe, during which sanctions were imposed and countries like Britain told the world that the country’s healthcare system had collapsed because of President Mugabe’s policies.
The study’s findings have been published in the journal, PloS Medicine, and the British scientists admit that Zimbabwe’s policies to prevent HIV infections have been a success.
“We hope that Zimbabwe and other countries in Southern Africa can learn from these lessons and strengthen programmes to drive (down) infections even further,” said Mr Timothy Hallett of Imperial College, London — one of the researchers.
A senior investigator on the study, also from Imperial College, Mr Simon Gregson said given continuing high HIV infection rates in many sub-Saharan African countries, it was important to understand why infections were going down in Zimbabwe.
“Very few other countries around the world have seen reductions in HIV infections, and of all African nations, Zimbabwe was thought least likely to see such a turnaround,” he admitted.
Zimbabwe’s intervention is premised on behaviour cha-nge and an innovative Aids Levy.
While it is commonly assumed that countries in economic decline witness an increase in risky sexual behaviours such as prostitution, Zimbabwe had somehow bucked that trend.
“It appears that condoms were usually not promoted in the often highly ‘sexy’ manner as occurred in some neighbouring countries, but generally as a strict ‘protective’ public health intervention,” reads part of the study.
The researchers noted that the combination of high levels of secondary education and marriage played a pivotal role in the reduction of HIV transmission.
They further noted that Zimbabwe’s home-based care programmes could have also contributed to the decline.
Researchers hailed Zimbabwe for spreading information on HIV and Aids through other channels apart from the mainstream media, such as family, friends, churches and interpersonal sources.
Dr David Parirenytwa, who was Minister of Health and Child Welfare during part of the period looked at in the study, yesterday said Western attempts to isolate Zimbabwe had deprived the world of an opportunity to learn from the country.
“If it was not for the politics we should have been seeing delegations of people from other countries coming to Zimbabwe to see how its done,” Dr Parirenyatwa said.
He said Zimbabwe’s HIV prevalence rate declined when funding was very limited and the country relied on the Aids Levy – a statutory tax on all formal employees – to arrest the virus’ spread.
For HIV and Aids programmes, Zimbabwe gets international funding averaging US$4 per person compared to about US$103 in other countries.
The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria has largely been indifferent to Zimbabwe’s requests for funding despite the country having sound intervention policies.
In the past, Global Fund leaders have admitted that politics have come into play when considering how much funding Zimbabwe gets.
Political analysts Professor Jonathan Moyo said the British study’s findings showed that Zimbabwe was not a “failed state” – as claimed in some sections of the media.
“It is an embarrassment to the European Union and the Americans because it is a success which happened at the height of their regime change agenda.
“They used all their non-governmental organisations and political puppets to portray Zimbabwe as a failed state and yet we are a success,” Prof Moyo said.
He said there was need to congratulate Dr Parirenyatwa and Dr Timothy Stamps – who preceded the former as Health Minister – for their work in developing Zimbabwe.
Because of the policies put in place during the 90s and at the turn of the millennium, Zimbabwe has continued to record a decline in HIV prevalence rate.
The current rate stands at 14,26 percent.