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Source: Rapid diagnostics test for remote areas | Daily News

Global biotechnology giants Abbott Laboratories have set their eyes on introducing a rapid diagnostics test in Zimbabwe that can be used in remote areas for testing an HIV patient’s viral load.

In an interview with the Daily News yesterday, Abbott vice president Willem Pretorius said the devices could be very useful in remote areas which do not have viral load counting machines.
According to Pretorius the test which has been World Health Organisation-approved checks and releases the results in 70 minutes and helps manage workload of staff.

“We noticed that the biggest challenge in Africa is that a large population lives in the rural areas and even in urban settings it takes a lot for people to access healthcare particularly vulnerable groups of society like single mothers, the elderly and orphans.

People still have to travel long distances and for diagnostics are done in advanced laboratories which take time for results to get back to the patient.” “We find that the costs of following up are high and sometimes it is hard to trace the patient up for their results.

The point of care diagnostics take the diagnostics to those people in the remote areas instead of getting the people to come to the diagnostics. This would save a lot of money for the country and the patient as well,” he said.

Pretorius said the diagnostics are very simple to perform and even a village health worker can use the machines with ease.
He said the advantages of the devices are that they give actionable results while the patient waits and this cuts costs for both the health centre and patient.

“The advantages of using the device are that once tested for viral load, the caregiver can ascertain what to do with the patient; whether they have the drug resistance form because they are not taking their medication and have to be switched from first line to second line medication, whether to manage the virus.

“The device has many benefits for both the patient and healthcare system because the sooner the viral load is detected to be too high the better because if the disease will progress and destroy the helper cells and disease will progress to instate HIV.

“If we can keep the viral load suppressed we can preserve the immune system of the patient and they will have a healthier and longer productive life,” Pretorius said.

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Source: 'Artisanal mining can boost economy' | Daily News

Zimabwean Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) has implored government to decriminalise artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) to enable the sector to fully contribute to economic development, poverty alleviation and foreign currency retention.

In a statement, Zimcodd said government should promulgate an enabling legislative and regulatory framework that decriminalises ASM which should be supported by objective, consistent, transparent and non-discriminatory regulatory mechanisms which offer easy access to mining titles and legal production channels.

This comes after a report showed that in 2018, ASMs contributed 65,5 percent of gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refineries, and this year’s Monetary Policy Statement showed that gold deliveries from small- scale producers increased by 64,5 percent from 13,2 tonnes in 2017 to 21,7 tonnes in 2018.

“This amount is obviously an underestimation of their production levels considering that ASM is criminalised in Zimbabwe. The contribution made by these miners under the unfavourable conditions characterised by hide and seek operations is therefore a clear testimony that once decriminalised and supported, it can turn around the economy,” Zimcodd said.

Zimcodd added that decriminalising ASM should be a quick win for the government in terms of boosting foreign currency and export performance, because the informality of ASM does not only sabotage the potential for turning around the economy but also have negative effects on the country’s social, environmental and fiscal well-being.

“The government should use statistics highlighted in the monetary policy as a basis for incorporating ASM as a strategic component for rural development which needs both technical and financial support,” Zimcodd said. The government last month introduced the new monetary policy whereby Real Time Gross settlements (RTGS) have been formalised to RTGS dollars and the exchange rate has been officially pegged at 1: 2.5 to eradicate illegal foreign currency dealings, and promote foreign currency retention.

However, small-scale miners have withheld their gold deliveries due to lower US dollar retention barely five days after the announcement of the Monetary Policy Statement with only 20kg of gold being delivered compared to the 60kg per day on average.

Zimcodd pointed out that an attempt by the government to increase the foreign currency retention threshold for ASMs to 55 percent consistent with the bigger mining houses and proposed 30-day amortisation period for redeeming the foreign currency retention may push off the ASMs to smuggling and other alternative markets where they access 100 percent foreign currency for their proceeds.

There are approximately 500 000 artisanal and small-scale miners in Zimbabwe and over one million people are dependent on the sub-sector.

The post ‘Artisanal mining can boost economy’ appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

JOHANNESBURG – Efforts by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Southern African Development Community executive secretary Dr Stergomena Tax to have sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe lifted have failed to bear fruit, after US President Donald [...]