HARARE, Aug 26 (AFP) - An estimated 14 million people in southern Africa face serious health problems because of food shortages across the region, officials were told Monday at a regional meeting to discuss the crisis.
Health ministers from 10 southern African nations were due to attend a three-day meeting organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Zimbabwe capital, Harare.
"We are concerned that many deaths that occur during emergencies like the current one are due not only to starvation but also to disease," said WHO regional director for Africa, Ebrahim Samba.
Officials said the meeting would also be addressed WHO director general Gro Harlem Brundland, Samba, and other UN officials and aid agencies so that ways could be found to to bolster health services in the region.
The food shortages have already raised the number of deaths from hunger-related diseases in countries like Malawi, where at least 1,000 people have died of cholera this year.
"Under-nutrition makes people more susceptible to disease and existing health services are often unable to take on the added burden," Samba said.
UN agencies estimate that 14 million people, including 2.3 million children under the age of five, are at risk from hunger.
Without urgent measures to protect the most vulnerable, at least 300,000 people could die of hunger and disease in the next six months, according to WHO statistics.
Southern Africa already has the world's highest incidence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Malnutrition causes the disease to thrive as people are weakened by hunger.
Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are suffering from severe food shortages caused by drought, conflicts and poor government policies.
Other nations attending the meeting are Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa.
"You have the populations, you have the problems," Samba told delegates to the meeting on Monday. He urged them to tell WHO what they needed in terms of support.
He said health information systems in the region needed speedy improvement. "This will give us the guidelines as to where and how and when we intervene," he said.
Kassahun Kiros, a WHO advisor from Brazzaville said poor health delivery systems, lack of skills and shortages of drugs and equipment were some of the factors increasing rates of maternal mortality in the region.
In Malawi, he said, a 71 percent increase in deaths of mothers had been registered according to latest figures.
Theresa Lesikel, a WHO representative from Swaziland said in some southern African countries worst-affected by HIV, up to 50 percent or more of households are female-headed.
The effect of AIDS and HIV-related illnesses on families is compounding the current crisis, she noted.
"Women who are pregnant do not have time to go to the clinics for ante-natal care," she said. "They're caring for HIV-infected people at home."
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