Major progress in health through technology_美文

Major progress in health through technology

The donation is part of a $2.1 million gift from PEPFAR -- the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- to strengthen Zimbabwe’s health management system.

Paula Morgan is the deputy director of the CDC in Zimbabwe.

“Health wise across the board, particularly around disease detection and surveillance, it’s important to us to capture all of them, but because we do work with the PEPFAR program, we do concentrate on the HIV and AIDS epidemic.”

One of the biggest problems facing Zimbabwe is the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV, is the cause of the disease AIDS. The United Nations says new HIV infection rates have dropped by 50 percent in Zimbabwe. But there are still 1.2 million people infected with the virus.

The government in Zimbabwe has little money for health care programs. As a result, the country has failed to meet the targets of what health officials have called the “Abuja Declarations.” Under those goals, African governments are required to spend 15 percent of their budgets on health-related issues.

Ponesai Nyika is a director of the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health.

“This donation is really, really important. It came at a time when we really need it, because what has been happening is at the local clinic they’re using hard copies, which is a paper-based system. They record their patients in registers and tally sheets, where they just tally against the patient’s age, name and the diagnosis, the treatment that they have been given.”