Zimbabwe’s AIDS-HIV Disaster Grows

Despite Zimbabwe’s yearlong public awareness campaign, health officials are alarmed by the rate at which the country’s cases of AIDS and HIV infection continue to rise.

Figures released recently show that 724 new cases of fully developed AIDS were reported in the first three months of 1991, bringing Zimbabwe’s official total to 7,718, up from 119 cases in 1987.

The deadly disease is far more widespread than the figures indicate, according to Zimbabwe’s health minister, Dr. Timothy Stamps, because, he says, many cases are not reported.

Even more frightening, according to Stamps, are the figures indicating that at least 500,000 Zimbabweans are HIV-positive, out of a population of 10 million. Those numbers are expected to continue to climb; there is no sign that the spread of HIV infection is abating.

A test of 1,000 pregnant women showed 18% to be HIV-positive, said Dr. Everisto Marowa, coordinator of the AIDS Control Program.

“Doomed themselves, these mothers-to-be are doomed to see the children they carry also die,” said an editorial in the semiofficial newspaper The Herald. “Instead of bearers of life, they are bearers of death.”

Tests in major industrial companies show that more than 20% of the work force is HIV-positive and Zimbabwe’s largest medical insurance company, CIMAS, warned that it may be unable to cope with the huge medical expenses for AIDS patients in the coming years. AIDS already is the biggest killer of children under the age of 4.

“AIDS has already put hospitals under stress,” The Herald editorial said. “And fears that medical services could be brought to the point of collapse are very real indeed if the spread of the disease continues unchecked.”

The growth of HIV infection in Zimbabwe is the crest of the wave through Africa. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 7 million Africans already are infected with HIV.

The rapid spread of AIDS through sub-Saharan Africa and Asia has prompted the WHO to predict that 40 million people will be infected with HIV by the turn of the century.

In Zimbabwe many people heedlessly ignore the AIDS threat, according to surveys, and continue to have promiscuous, unprotected sex.

“It is just a big scare by the churches,” said one Zimbabwean man at a bar in Harare’s red-light district. “Some doctors say people have AIDS when they just have a cough or stomach problems.”

Polygamy is traditionally practiced in Zimbabwe, and many men have several sexual partners. Prostitutes in Harare’s Avenues District say most clients scorn the use of condoms, and the young women comply. Men spread infection to other girlfriends and wives in both the cities and rural areas.

The dire warnings about AIDS in Zimbabwe’s newspapers and on the radio and television go unheeded because few people have publicly stated they are dying of AIDS. At least two Cabinet ministers, a well-known author and an army general have died of AIDS, according to medical sources, but none publicly admitted it.

“It is only when the Zimbabwean public is confronted with well-known people dying of AIDS that they will begin to comprehend the threat,” said the spokeswoman for the non-governmental AIDS Counseling Trust.

“In Zambia and Uganda prominent people have come forward to say they have AIDS, and their warnings have had much more effect than the statistics,” the spokeswoman said. “More than anything else, we need some brave public figures to warn Zimbabwe.”