The Daily News, Zimbabwe - 14 June 2002

The National Aids Council (NAC) estimates that the number of orphans in Zimbabwe who have lost one or both of their parents as a result of HIV/Aids-related deaths is around 700,000.

Everisto Marowa, the NAC executive director, said in an interview in Harare on Wednesday the number of orphaned children was rising and would be reviewed at the end of the year. “The problem of orphans in Zimbabwe is widespread and covers all provinces and districts,” he said. “Their parents die after exhausting all family savings on medical costs.”

About two million Zimbabweans were living with HIV/Aids and more than 600, 000 had died from the disease since 1998, he said. Marowa said the NAC had so far disbursed $1,3 billion to districts to assist people living with HIV/Aids, including orphans and elderly people. He said the $1,3 billion disbursed excludes $966 million budgeted for the purchase of drugs of opportunistic infections like the flu, headaches, stomach pains and diarrhoea, and $200 million set aside for Basic Education Assistance Module. Marowa said each of the 83 Aids districts in Zimbabwe will this year spend $5 million on prevention, support and mitigation of HIV/Aids. Marowa said all orphans under 15 years of age deserving assistance were vetted by Aids committees set up at each village in Zimbabwe. He said the NAC wanted to assist all orphans and people living with HIV/Aids but they had limited resources.

Other organisations are assisting people living with HIV/Aids. For example Pact Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organisation in Harare dealing with HIV/Aids, says it has spent US$3,9 million (Z$214,5 million) on 20,000 people living with the disease in Zimbabwe since 1998. William Salmond, the director of Pact Zimbabwe, said the money was used to acquire home-based care kits for 20 organisations involved in HIV/Aids programmes. Salmond said they received funding from the United States Agency for International Development and the Swedish International Development Agency to cover their HIV/Aids programmes.

Salmond said: “Our funding covers training of volunteers and supply of home-based care kits and food to patients.” He said they set up five post-HIV/Aids test clubs for people who tested both HIV negative and positive with 4 000 members in Harare, Norton, Epworth, Bulawayo and Chitungwiza. The members come together to receive material support and share ideas on how to overcome HIV/Aids-related stress, he said. Salmond said members of the post-HIV/Aids faced serious problems in accessing anti-retroviral drugs to boost their immune system. The United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has so far spent $6,6 million of the $385 million to assist people living with Aids this year.