Zimbabwe has just unveiled its first nationally produced HIV/AIDS report. The latest estimates are based on the Epidemic Projection Package software which has been used to calculate HIV prevalence by UNAIDS and the WHO. The study for the year 2002 thankfully shows a drop in the number of people previously though to be HIV positive in that dictatorship-ridden country, where unemployment is now estimated at 60% and inflation at 116%. The results of the study show that 1.8 million Zimbabweans aged between 15 and 49 are presently infected with HIV. The figure is less than that estimated by the United Nations in its Global AIDS Report for the year 2001, in which it reported that more than 2 million out of Zimbabwe's population of 11.6 million were infected. However, closer analysis of these figures shows another tragedy, more than 50% of those infected are women and children. In rural Zimbabwe, 500,000 people are now estimated to be at risk of starvation. It is true that recent emergency imports of South African maize have prevented large numbers of people from dying. The statistics are staggering and mean that over 20% of Zimbabweans, aged 15 to 49 are now infected with HIV, and the scourge of AIDS will most probably wipe out an entire generation. This year alone 80,000 will die of the disease and by Christmas 2004 the number of AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe will top 1 million. In most parts of the industrialized world, typically, 1% of the children are orphaned; in Zimbabwe, it is 7 percent. Because the disease is concentrated in the sexually active population of people aged 15-49, the majority of whom are parents, the implications for Zimbabwe’s future are enormous. The expanding population of orphans will have a devastating impact on the nation’s social and economic infrastructure with many of the children turning to prostitution and theft as a means of looking after their siblings. It is so sad to see what has happened to this picturesque nation that should have rightfully deserved the title “The Pearl of Africa”.
The problems that are facing Zimbabwe are enormous and having lived there for differing periods, I know that stark choices have to be immediately made to save both the country and the present generation from extinction. Both problems are intrinsically linked and I must first take a moment to explain the political dimension before moving on to face the even bigger problem of HIV/AIDS. The country must for its own sake, undergo two more revolutions to clean itself of the baggage it has inherited since it gained its independence. I make no bones about it, like my opposition to Thabo Mbeki’s pseudoscientific policies in South Africa, in order to prevent total economic collapse in Zimbabwe, the present ruler Robert Mugabe has to go. When this African despot came to power in 1980, he led the world to believe that he was committed to a policy of peace and reconciliation. After decades of white colonial rule and a bitter civil war, many Western countries were desperate for an African success story and they were willing to believe him. Of all the countries in post-colonial Africa, Zimbabwe was blessed with ample foreign investment, a robust infrastructure and thriving agriculture and it seemed to be the most likely to succeed. In fact, within a short time, Western countries elevated Mugabe to the ranks of an international statesman courting the Presidents of the world. From the outset, I must say that I never personally liked Robert Mugabe. I was horrified when nobody in the Western world protested and he was allowed to let his North Korean trained 5th Brigade to enact mass murder on over 30,000 of the Ndebele people, whom I had lived amongst. It was obvious to me that he was a committed Marxist who wanted to continue his ‘revolution’ and impose a one-party state on Rhodesia. I liked him even less; when his economic policies caused the Zimbabwean economy to go into free fall. In order to divert Shona attention from his failed economic policies, he largely encouraged the corrupt and largely roguish Zanu-PF to acquire much of the nation’s productive white commercial farmland and in doing so he lost the trust of his donors and soon he had ran out of money and his country faced starvation. At the risk of sounding like a white post colonialist, I often think that Cecil John Rhodes must be turning in that lonely grave on an outcrop of granite, high in the Matopos as he looks down upon this great nation, once the pride of Africa, and see it facing total ruin with not enough foreign exchange to buy basic fuel and electricity and it’s citizens being decimated by a plague that will wipe out an entire generation of people. However, to be fair to Robert Mugabe, the spiralling HIV/AIDS problem and the generation of orphans cannot be laid at his footsteps alone. We must be honest and state that the rapid spread of AIDS in Zimbabwe is facilitated by a culture of rampant promiscuity and the type of economy that forces many men to work for days, weeks or months, at great distances from their wives and families. This is also a male dominated society, where women are in subservience and many wives and prostitutes often risk physical punishment if they try to get their sexual partner to wear a condom. In many ways, societal attitudes are exactly the opposite of those further north in Uganda and there is still a general feeling amongst many of these people who have worked in South Africa that condoms are a white man’s device introduced in order to control their population. The second problem is one that I have addressed many times before and that is that young girls have little chance of resisting advances from elders who may be infected with HIV. In fact, many men believe that having sexual relations with a virgin will cure them of AIDS and like South Africa, infected men actively seek out young women and the disease proliferates. The AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe is not restricted to the poor uneducated urban dweller, but it now has spread to all levels of society. In other words, Zimbabwe must undergo a second revolution, one that addresses behavioural changes in society before it can overcome the ravages of AIDS. This is where we have to be realistic, providing money and anti-retroviral drugs will not solve this problem, we have to change the attitudes of a generation. However, it probably already too late, as most of the 1.5 million Zimbabweans already infected with HIV will most certainly die.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS can best be described as a 21st century plague. Approximately 28 million people there are HIV positive. Last year 3.4 million adults and children in the region were infected with HIV and 2.3 million died from AIDS-related causes. In some communities along the Zimbabwe-South Africa border, it is estimated that 70 percent of adults are HIV positive. Remeber, by Christmas 2004 the number of AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe will top 1 million. Jesus once said "Suffer the little children", maybe we should think about that for a moment before we take into our Christmans dinners this year.
Organizations Fighting AIDS in Zimbabwe
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Web site: unicef.org
Overview: Gives information on UNICEF and its activities as well as its publications catalogue, which includes some HIV/AIDS related topics.
African AIDS Supplement Fund
Address: Committee for World Health
19571 Pauling Foothill Ranch, CA 92610
Web site: cworldhealth.org
Overview: In Zimbabwe, at the orphanage of Fairfield Hospital, the Committee for World Health gives nutritional supplements to children who suffer from AIDS, malaria, and numerous other viral and parasitic diseases.
Children’s Cup International Relief in Vietnam and Zimbabwe
Address: PO Box 400 Prairieville, LA 70769-0400
Web site: childrenscup.org/africa.htm
Overview: Children’s Cup concentrates on AIDS orphans. It has camps in Tongogara and Chambuta that care for between 1,000 to 1,200 children.
Catholic Relief Services World Headquarters
Address: 209 W Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-3443, USA
Web site: catholicrelief.org/what/overseas/aids.cfm
Overview: A page on the CRS site describes CRS AIDS programs. Featured are global AIDS statistics, the Zimbabwe Mutare Diocese AIDS Project, Malawi AIDS Education Project and Burundi AIDS Prevention Program.
