Health crisis in Zimbabwe is "man-made" and needs intervention from all UN states, report says

doi:10.1136/bmj.b100

Published 13 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b100
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b100

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Health crisis in Zimbabwe is "man-made" and needs intervention from all UN states, report says

Peter Moszynski

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The collapse of Zimbabwe’s formerly world class healthcaresystem is a "man-made disaster," says an emergency report fromthe US based charity Physicians for Human Rights. It says thatlife expectancy at birth in the country has plummeted over thepast 20 years, from 60 to 36, and it warns that the situationcontinues to deteriorate, as the country no longer has any functioningpublic hospitals.

In the report’s preface Mary Robinson, former UN humanrights commissioner, Richard Goldstone, former UN chief prosecutorfor Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu say:"The Mugabe regime has used any means at its disposal, includingpoliticizing the health sector, to maintain its hold on power.Instead of fulfilling its obligation to progressively realizethe right to health for the people of Zimbabwe, the Governmenthas taken the country backwards, which has enabled the destructionof health, water, and sanitation—all with fatal consequences."

. . . [Full text of this article]

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