By Kuda Pembere in Bulilima
Bulilima has been the most improved district in the country raising its malnutrition cure rate from 39 percent in 2022 leaping to 74 percent the following year, HealthTimes has learned.
In an exclusive interview during a Mat South Health Resilience Fund (HRF) impact assessment media tour, Matabeleland South Provincial Nutrition officer, Innocent Mazarura said the district used to record a poor cure rate over the years. Cure rate is for all malnutrition cases including children under five.
And actually, I want to zero in to this district. This district was at the second-worst-performing cure rate the previous year. After the mentorships, and even the outreaches which are funded through HRF, Bulilima actually was at 74 percent last year, from 39 percent. Their cure rate from the previous year 2022. It was the second worst performing in the country. And we moved it from 39 percent to 74percent,” he said.
The HRF launched last year, has been instrumental in seeing the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the lead implementer of the Fund achieves such feats. It is funded by the UK Government, the Embassy of Ireland, the European Union, and GAVI while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) provide technical support to ensure Zimbabwe achieves targets espoused in the National Development Strategy (NDS1) as well as the National Health Strategy (NHS 2021-2025).
He also said Bulilima is amongst the most malnourished districts in Mat South.
“I think in the province, Bulilima usually records cases of Kwashiorkor and marasmus. But what I can safely say is some of the most affected districts are usually I think if you look at the last Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment (Zimvac), Mat South, we had six out of the seven districts in the top 30 worst affected districts. I could say top 20 worst affected districts because usually, our districts that are mostly affected with by malnutrition cases are this district, Bulilima, Mangwe, Matobo, Beitbridge and Insiza.”
The Mat South province infamous for its aridity performed well in its malnutrition cure rate for 2023 given the previous year, they were shy of the global target of 75 percent.
“Our cure rate last year was at 76% and you know the global target is 75% so we were within the acceptable global range for our cure rate, which means we did quite well. And this is from the backdrop of the previous year, we were at 70%,” Mr Mazarure added.
The Acting Provincial Medical Director, Dr Felix Muza said as the Health and Child Care Ministry, they are addressing the curative component in malnutrition through the HRF fund via procuring medical supplies and capacitating village health workers as well as nurses and doctors in the province.
“So maybe in light of the drought that is impending, you would realize that the Ministry of Health and Child Care does not work in isolation. We work with other government partners coordinated by the Professor Secretary for Devolution. So we have other government departments that are working on maybe food security and food provision.
“But for us as the Ministry of Health, one of our contributions to the nutrition pillar in the NDS is we are also looking at, like I said, curing or treatment of malnourished children. So through the HRF, usually we get support in terms of medical supplies, nutritional feeds, and the capacitation of health care workers to even treat those that might be affected by such emergencies,” he said.
He added, “Then generally, in terms of emergency preparedness and response, our EPR systems, as we have been responding to cholera and other outbreaks, we have been generally strengthening our emergency support systems so that when we’ve got other disasters like droughts, we are also going to ride on the experiences that we have got from responding to the other emergencies with the support from HRF.”
Dr Muza said despite the province being the driest in the country, their health facilities have enough water supplies.
“So far we have not yet reports of facilities that have run dry. I think we still have adequate water in our facilities, but probably as the season progresses we will review the situation as we go,” he said.
