Zimbabwe is now under a devastating attack by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Aids and it

By admin
Ballet Shoes Center.com

Published: July 25, 2010

commentComment        

Zimbabwe is now under a devastating attack by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids), and it is a battle Mrs Rwafa and other health officials know, at least in the short term, will be lost.
“So many people are dying now that there are funerals all the time Every day some of the people I go to visit are already dead. They are dying like flies.”All over Zimbabwe health workers and activists are taking up the challenge to educate Zimbabweans how to prevent infection by the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) and to care for those who fall victim to Aids. Mrs Rwafa works at an Aids care and awareness project called Dananai (“unconditional love”) based at the Murambinda mission hospital in the drought-stricken district of Buhera, about 150 miles southeast of Harare, the capital.It was the death of her brother Charles, aged 30, that converted her. “When I was directly affected by Aids, that is when I could actually understand how the patients felt – what it really means to be affected by this virus. Somehow when I visit a family, I feel like I am caring for my brother.”Mrs Rwafa spends her days travelling within a 40-mile radius visiting Aids patients in their homes. Her job is part medical, dispensing medicines to ease pain and battle infection, and part psychological, giving victims and their families the sense that someone cares.Tsitsi’s case is typical She lives with her grandparents near the village of Mudanda.

Aids cut down both of her parents and a four-year-old brother in the past year. When Mrs Rwafa paid a recent visit to the homestead, Tsitsi was lying on a reed mat in the sun. She was lethargic, and despite Mrs Rwafa’s best efforts, she would not smile: “She has forgotten how to laugh.”Current projections suggest that by the year 2010, one-third of all Zimbabwean youngsters will be orphans, provided they survive their early years. Aids is now the leading killer of Zimbabwean children under five.The disease accounts for 300,000 deaths per year in sub-Saharan Africa, a rate that is expected to reach 900,000 in five years, according to the World Health Organisation.

In Zimbabwe total deaths are expected to pass the one million mark, about one-tenth of the country’s current population, by the year 2000 Five years later, the toll could reach two million. An estimated 25-40 percent of the sexually active population is infected. Some projections suggest that in the next 10 years, avergae life expectancy in Zimbabwe could fall from about 55 years to between 30 and 35 years.The grim statistics of what Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health, Timothy Stamps, called “the ripening of the epidemic” tell only part of the story, however. In rural areas such as Buhera, the drastic reduction in the number of young females could cause an economic and social crisis on a scale never seen, since they are responsible for most of the agricultural production and care for children, the sick and elderly.”More than 90 per cent of the infected individuals are in their economically most productive years, ages 15 to 40,” the World Bank said in a 1993 report. Anglo American Corporation, the biggest private employer in Zimbabwe, estimates that 25 per cent of its 15,000 employees are HIV- positive.


Comments are closed.

Ballet Shoes Center Latest

>Next Articles

Top Brands