Zambia scraps healthcare fees for poor rural people

The government of Zambia last week introduced free health care in rural areas. It scrapped the user fees that had made health care largely inaccessible to millions of people living below the poverty line in one of Africa's poorest countries.

The British charity Oxfam, which aims to alleviate poverty around the world, said that Zambia's move was made possible through using money from the cancellation of debt and the increases in aid agreed at last July's summit at Gleneagles of the G8 group of wealthiest countries, when Zambia received $4bn (£2.3bn; €3.3bn) in debt relief.

“This is one of the first concrete examples of how the …