Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 1/26/2004

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U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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CONTENT:

1 - ZIMBABWE: EU aid for health services

1 - ZIMBABWE: EU aid for health services

HARARE, 26 January (PLUSNEWS) - The European Union is this year expected

to spend close to US $30 million to help improve Zimbabwe's underfunded

health delivery system.

The head of the European Commission (EC) delegation to Zimbabwe, Francesca

Mosca, said in a statement last week the money would be taken from a US

$69 million fund committed to Zimbabwe for the period 2000 to 2006.

" The programme's purposes are to support people's increased access to

affordable quality health services, mainly by ensuring the continued

availability of safe blood and the supply of essential drugs for the

prevention, treatment and control of HIV/AIDS and other communicable and

non-communicable diseases, " said Mosca.

She said priority areas would be the fight against HIV/AIDS. " The European

Commission sees the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe as one of the biggest

socioeconomic problems facing the country. " The EC would support a

national AIDS conference to be held in June, and part of the money would

also go towards assisting NGOs involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS and

malaria.

The cash injection would improve crumbling infrastructure and delapidated

equipment at the country's hospitals. " A lot of the equipment at hospitals

and health facilities needs repairs or replacement, " said Mosca.

[ENDS]

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