Infectious diseases on the rise

Infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and diarrhoea are on the rise and now account for nearly 80 percent of medical problems in Zambia, 'The Post' reported on Wednesday. The disclosure was made by Dr Francis Kasolo, head of the virology project at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. He said Zambia needed better laboratory facilities and highly trained staff to help control the diseases. A health worker told IRIN that one of the reasons for this could be that there has been a "sharp rise in the cost of living, which means that people have very little money if any to pay for medical care." She added that environmental problems such as poor sanitation had "worsened the situation." "There has been a shortage of medicine to treat these people and there has been a problem of bed capacity. People are released from hospital prematurely, they don't spend enough time under supervised medical care," she said. "The health care budget is totally insufficient. There is just not enough money to care for all these people," she added. The health worker said that the HIV/AIDS pandemic had "taken it toll" on the population and was in part responsible for the rise of TB cases. According to the latest UN Human Development Report, 530 out of every 100,000 people in Zambia suffer from HIV/AIDS, while 482 have TB. The report said that 80 percent of the population were not expected to live beyond the age of 60. Zambia was ranked 151 out of 174 countries on the UN Human Development Index.