The basic goal of USAID’s health sector assistance is to reduce mortality and morbidity in Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on women and children. Objectives related to this goal are to: increase the availability of and public access to basic health services and improve health outcomes resulting from those essential health services selected for assistance.
In particular, USAID’s strategy addresses the health challenges faced by Zimbabwean women and their families. The strategy was formulated under the principles of the Global Health Initiative and is fully oriented to helping Zimbabwe improve health outcomes through strength¬ened health systems, with a particular focus on improving the health of women, newborns and children through the national, country-led programs for infectious diseases, maternal, neonatal and child health.
Specifics of our program include:
• USG works with GOZ through the Ministry of Health and the National AIDS Council to support efforts to address the 3 greatest health risks in Zimbabwe (HIV and AIDS, TB & Malaria) with a budget of approximately $65 million per year.
• USG support in line with national health strategies and priorities and is contributing to accelerating progress towards the attainment of Millennium Development Goals.
• Global Fund (GF): Globally, USG contributes 33% of the overall funding available to The Global Fund. Zimbabwe has been a GF grant recipient under Round 1, 5 and 8. The GF Round 8 grant for Zimbabwe of approximately $500 million is the largest single GF grant ever received by any country in the history of GF.
• PEPFAR: Zimbabwe has benefited from PEPFAR funding since 2006 and in 2011 the USG will provide $56 million for HIV and AIDS programs in Zimbabwe this year.
• USG’s efforts are geared towards reducing mortality & morbidity by improving health outcomes from essential health services.
In 2010 alone, the USG supported national efforts to reduce HIV and AIDS incidence and prevalence through support to national HIV prevention programs including provision of:
• 55 million male condoms to the public sector and distribution of over 21 million condoms through social marketing networks.
• Counseling and testing services to 570,000 individuals including 215,000 pregnant women. Over 2 million Zimbabweans have received counseling with USG support over the last 10 years
• Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services to 26,000 HIV infected pregnant women representing more than 50% of the estimated annual total number of HIV positive deliveries in Zimbabwe
• Male circumcision services to 10,000 men as part of the initial rollout of the national male circumcision programme.
2. Improvement of quality of life for people affected and infected with HIV and AIDS through:
• Provision of anti-retroviral therapy for 60,000 HIV positive and eligible individuals. This year it will increase to 80,000
• Provision of a range of care services to 360,000 HIV infected individuals.
3. Reduction in TB morbidity and mortality through improved TB case identification and TB case management at national, provincial and district levels.
4. Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies by supporting the delivery of family planning commodities to all public health facilities.
An additional $5 million USG support in 2011 will focus on maternal and child health interventions to:
• Reduce maternal mortality through enhancing safe delivery practices by strengthening the quality of emergency obstetric and neonatal care and improved family planning services
• Lower infant and child mortality by improving basic child health services, particularly for pneumonia, diarrhea and vaccine preventable diseases.
• Provide additional support to comprehensive Family Planning service delivery targeted at 44,000 men and women in poor and hard to reach populations of Zimbabwe.
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