MUTARE Health officials here say they are struggling to cope with an ever growing number of people requiring HIV treatment and said some patients could end up waiting for up to a year before they are able to receive life-saving antiretroviral drugs. An official at the Mutare General hospital, the main referral centre for patients from the eastern border city and the surrounding Manicaland province, blamed the backlog of HIV cases on a shortage of doctors who are qualified to prescribe ARVs to patients.
We have between 200 and 300 people on the waiting list for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and we can only cater for a few people. We fear it might take up to a year before a patient is put on ARV therapy, said the official, who did not want to be named because he did not have permission from his superiors to speak to the press.
The official said some HIV-positive cross-border traders visiting neighbouring Mozambique to buy goods for re-sale in Zimbabwe often turn to public hospitals in the city for ARV supplies, increasing the burden on the institutions that usually carry stocks that are adequate only for people in the city and the province.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS although the country has been praised for running an effective anti-HIV/AIDS programme after it managed to bring down infection rates to become one of only two sub-Saharan nations to achieve the feat. The other one is Uganda.
Post published in: News