This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 25th, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Zimbabwean health outcomes are disastrous,

according to Richard Trend, the director of Africa fighting malaria,

but with elections looming is there a chance to make them better with a replacement of the

Macabre government. Trent visited the Cato Institute yesterday.

Give us a picture of the health care situation in Zimbabwe right now?

It is a disastrous situation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross describes the Zimbabwe health care situation

as a war situation.

We have a situation where the life expectancy for women is just

34 years and for men is 37 years. Now compare that to the average life

expectancy worldwide which is 66.8 years.

It's about half for women.

And remember, this is in a country that once boasted a very good and functioning health care system and a good public health system.

Life expectancy increased to 63 years in 1998. Now it's 34 years for women. There is a lack of this widespread malnutrition

in a country that was once the bread basket of the region. There is a complete lack of medicines, doctors, nurses, and

hospitals don't even have basic things like bandages and syringes.

The malnutrition situation has made the HIV AIDS situation much worse.

That's true.

The Zimbabwe AIDS network estimates that there are around 800,000 Zimbabweans in need of anti-retroviral treatment.

At the moment, they estimate conservatively 40,000 people actually are receiving treatment.

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