Officials accused of stealing ARVs

international donor groups for sale on the black market.

Speaking at a seminar on HIV/AIDS in Harare last week several activists also claimed that some politicians especially from remote areas were demanding HIV positive people to support them or their political parties in exchange for letters confirming they were in need of ARVs.

The activists called on aid groups to distribute ARVs directly to people needing them, bypassing the government officials and agencies.

A representative from the United States-based John Snow Inc that sources ARVs for poor countries professed ignorance about the alleged leakages.

But activists were adamant that drugs were being diverted from intended beneficiaries. “A lot of health workers (are) helping themselves to the drugs to supplement their meagre incomes,” said one aid worker at the meeting, who asked not to be named.

An activist, whose group sources contraceptives and ARVs for impoverished communities throughout the country, said the group had found some materials it had sourced for distribution for free in rural areas being sold in Harares Mbare high-density suburb.

“When we investigated, we discovered that the drugs were being stolen from rural clinics in the Midlands and Masvingo province,” the activist said.

In some remote rural communities, parliamentarians and councillors are required to write letters confirming that a sick person is too poor to afford ARVs in order that they can get free drugs supplied by donors. But in many cases the politicians demand that HIV positive person and their family must promise vote for them in future elections in exchange for the letter.

HIV/AIDS is a major killer in Zimbabwe claiming at least 3 000 lives per week with the impact of the pandemic worsened by widespread poverty and a public health system that remains largely dysfunctional despite spirited efforts by international donors and the countrys coalition government to improve drugs availability and efficiency in public hospitals.