African Development Bank (AfDB) and the government of India have provided a fleet of 20 ambulances and ancillary medical equipment to the government of Zimbabwe to help improve the country’s public health system.

Development Diaries understands that AfDB, through the World Health Organisation (WHO), donated ten of the ambulances and a consignment of ventilators.

The donation from AfDB is worth U.S.$3.5 million, according to a WHO Zimbabwe tweet.

Zimbabwe’s health sector is still recovering from decades of significant challenges, including inadequate financing, shortages of qualified staff, poor infrastructure and obsolete equipment.

Acting President and Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Constantino Chiwenga, said the donation was a first step towards the attainment of an effective ambulance system targeted by the ministry.

‘Let me affirm that the initial batch of donated ambulances will be distributed to some district, provincial, central hospitals and selected tollgates along major highways’, he said during the handover of the ambulances at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, Harare.

AfDB Country Manager, Moono Mupotola, said this was part of the bank’s three-year Covid-Response Project in Zimbabwe (CRP).

The ADF Transition Support Facility is financing the U.S.$10 million project, which was approved in May 2020.

‘The project aims to contribute to limiting the morbidity and mortality rates related to Covid-19 in Zimbabwe through the strengthening of the health system to effectively respond to the Covid-19 pandemic’, Mupotola said.

‘The project area covers 15 high-density urban suburbs in Harare and Bulawayo, satellite townships and targeted health facilities across the country’.

To date, WHO has procured 80 intensive care unit hospital beds to support case management for Covid-19 in the country.

Source: WHO Zimbabwe

Photo source: WHO Zimbabwe