The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare yesterday launched the Zimbabwe Infection Prevention and Control Project, which seeks to control infectious diseases such as tuberculosis at health centres.
The United States government, through the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief will devote $800 000 to the programme under which various stakeholders are to be trained on how to control infectious diseases.
Speaking at the launch, Health and Child Welfare Minister Henry Madzorera said: “There is need for strong prevention and control of infectious diseases to curb airborne transmissions.
“We need to train everyone, including specialists such as health personnel, to use local resources to stop the spreading of diseases,” he said.
“Nurses, doctors and the general public are at risk with the airborne transmitted diseases therefore it is our duty as the ministry concerned to channel resources towards projects like this one,” added Madzorera.
The project, advised by Professor Valerie Robertson and funded by the Centre for Diseases Control (CDC), also aims to reduce risks on the part of health practitioners.
Robertson confirmed the project will involve rolling out workshops throughout the provinces in Zimbabwe training the trainers who will in turn train the general populace.
Also speaking at the event Peter Kilmarx, director of CDC- Zimbabwe said:
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“Patients come to hospital to be cured, not to acquire new infections, health workers come to work to cure patients, not to acquire infections themselves, so there is need for serious precautions and acquisition of equipment to protect themselves,” he said.
The project comes at a time when the health delivery system in Zimbabwe is on a recovery path following a decade-long recession.
However, the government’s reduction of spending on social services has had disastrous consequences for the health sector.Top radio and television personality Tich Mataz was the master of ceremony.
