Government Hid Bulawayo HIV Study

Last Updated on Friday, 29 August 2008 21:41 Friday, 29 August 2008 19:53

The outgoing chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare, Blessing Chebundo, has castigated the government for failing to release results of a 1985 study aimed at establishing the actual prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Bulawayo after the first occurrence, fearing investor flight.

Chebundo said the failure by government to disclose the actual number of those infected, made it impossible to arrest the epidemic at an early stage.

“The government failed to make public the results gathered by a commission it set up to establish the prevalence of HIV/AIDS after the first case was recorded in the city, and the main reason then was that the government was afraid of scaring away investors,” Chebundo said.

The Kwekwe legislator also took a swipe at the government for failing to meet the Abuja declaration, which stipulates that African governments should allocate 15 percent of their budgets towards HIV/Aids.

He however said Zimbabwe was currently ahead of other countries in the SADC region in terms of HIV/Aids response.

“The country is leading in terms of HIV/Aids responses compared to other countries in the SADC region and we owe that to effective health policies,” he said.

Turning to allocation of resources, Chebundo said the national budget should allocate more resources towards fighting HIV/AIDS and in line with the Abuja quota.

“The Abuja declaration stipulates that governments should allocate about 15 percent of their budgets towards HIV/AIDS and Zimbabwe is currently allocating only 12 percent of the budget towards HIV/Aids, but more needs to be done,” Chebundo said.

He further encouraged Zimbabweans to get tested for HIV so they would know their status and help government to plan the resources it needs to deal with the virus. (Vop)

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written by mpho Mkhalipi , August 30, 2008

This is a puzzling statement from the legislator it smirks of tribalism ,it's a well known fact that the first aids case in Zimbabwe occured in Harare in 1983 shortly after it appeared on the world scene in 1980.Why then carry a study in a place where an aids report has not been documented,those results were not made available due to the fact it was not there to document and report. One Tambudzo marichera's death was of the unknown illness yet the fact is he died of aids related dementia,Big Zuze Budhu boys also aids all these deaths occured in the early stages of the epidemic in Harare.

Don't vent your anger on isizwe sikaMthwakazi 4 ukuziphatha kahle!

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Government Hid Bulawayo HIV Study

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