A top UN official said on Saturday that one million Zimbabweans are likely to die from Aids between now and 2010, as the virus continues to take its toll on the famine-hit southern African country.
Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in southern Africa, told a press conference that according to discussions he had held with government officials, 2 500 Zimbabweans were dying every week from HIV-related diseases.
”That means that Zimbabwe will experience a million additional deaths by the year 2010,” said Lewis. This would also swell the number of orphans in the country, currently estimated to number 800 000.
Lewis, who last visited the country in December told reporters he had seen a ”pronounced” difference in the country.
”It’s the desperate sense of accelerating urgency as this conjunction of hunger and Aids plays itself out,” Lewis said.
Currently eight million of the country’s 11,6 million people are threatened by famine. Weakened immune systems due to HIV, which affects one in three adults here, has worsened the effects of famine.
According to government figures, 70% of admissions at one Harare hospital are due to Aids-related diseases.
The envoy noted that Zimbabwe has ”evident political turbulence, it has economic hardship, it has hunger and famine”, but this ”desperately difficult historical moment” would be resolved.
”What will continue to haunt this country 15 and 20 years down the road is the phenomenon of Aids,” he said.
Lewis who is on a five-nation tour of famine-hit southern African countries, was due to leave Zimbabwe on Saturday for Malawi. – Sapa-AFP