Government disputes life expectancy figures

Zimbabwe has dismissed as “exaggerated” a UN report asserting that life expectancy will drop to 27 years in a decade as a result of HIV/AIDS, the news agency IPS reported. The UNICEF Progress Report on Zimbabwe 2000, released in Harare this week, said that overall life expectancy has already dropped to 44 years from its peak of 62 years in 1990.

David Parirenyatwa, Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, said the figures were “exaggerated and send a negative picture that the government is not doing anything”. Parirenyatwa described the statistics as “the worst possible scenario reached only in the absence of any interventions.” The UNICEF report was based on UNDP figures.

“There is a need to re-look at the figures putting into the context the intervention measures which the government is already implementing,” Parirenyatwa said. Zimbabwe has one of the highest levels of HIV infection in the world, with one in four people between the ages of 15 and 50 HIV-positive. More than 30 percent of all pregnant women have been diagnosed as HIV-positive. And more than 2,000 people die in Zimbabwe from the disease each week, according to health officials.