HARARE, June 18 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's first national AIDS conference came to a close on Friday with a call for united action to curb the pandemic affecting one in four Zimbabweans.
Delegates agreed that there was a need for the several hundred HIV/AIDS organisations to coordinate their activities to avoid duplication and wasting scarce resources.
"Let's not fight each other. Let's not fight among ourselves. Let's fight AIDS," Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told the delegates.
The provision of anti-AIDS drugs dominated the four-day conference with delegates expressing concern at how government could achieve its goal of rolling out anti-retrovirals to nearly 200,000 people by the end of 2005, up from only 5,000 patients who currently are treated by the free drugs.
AIDS activist Sostain Moyo said government had to ensure "transparency and accountability" in administering life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs, which are only available to a select few.
AIDS kills an average 3,000 people per week, out of the 1.8 million infected in the southern African country.
President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday described the fight against AIDS as "one of the greatest challenges" facing Zimbabwe but voiced optimism that the pandemic could be overcome.
"It is not an insurmountable challenge. We can and we should rise above this challenge, and win the fight," he said.
Some 700 delegates attended the four-day conference, representing a cross-section of society including government officials, ruling and opposition party lawmakers, civic groups, non-governmental organisations, the medical profession and grassroots organisations.
It was the first national conference on AIDS organised in Zimbabwe, nearly 20 years after the first case was diagnosed.
Zambia's former present Kenneth Kaunda urged Zimbabweans in his keynote speech on Thursday to put aside their political differences and unite to fight AIDS.
"Let us fight together and destroy this thing before it destroys us," said Kaunda, whose son died of AIDS in 1986.
In his address, Mugabe admitted that he too had suffered losses to AIDS and emphasized that the disease truck indiscriminately, targeting "alas, even ministers" in his government.
"There is hardly any community or family in our country that has not been touched or affected by HIV/AIDS and that includes the extended family of... the president himself," Mugabe said.
Last year, 138,000 Zimbabweans died from AIDS and the disease has so far left at least 761,000 children orphaned, health ministry officials told the conference.
But delegates heard that poverty and malnutrition were high hurdles in the race to save lives from AIDS. The latest UN figures state that 75 percent of Zimbabweans live in poverty.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis, with unemployment at 70 percent, runaway inflation and capital flight since elections in 2000 and 2002 plunged the country into political turmoil.
Mugabe's chaotic land reform program that saw thousands of white-owned commercial farms seized and handed over to landless blacks is also seen as a factor in Zimbabwe's economic meltdown.
040618
AF040670
©AFP 2004.. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2004. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2004 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
