Twenty years ago, my family and I decided to set up an HIV clinic in Zimbabwe. Looking back, I can only marvel at what we’ve been able to achieve in this time. Newlands Clinic now offers effective HIV treatment to around 8,000 patients. And we’ve become the most important HIV training centre in the country. Our team does highly profes- sional work and offers support wherever possible. That makes me proud and grateful. But there’s still a lot to do.
The public health system in Zimbabwe is still poorly set up. Very sick patients often come to Newlands Clinic in desperate need of help. It’s often too late, especially for people with severe, HIV-associated cancer, and we can only provide palliative care. This is a great psychological burden for our team. But despite these difficult moments, we also had many positive experiences. Last year, we were able to train over 1,000 health professionals in the field of HIV/AIDS (starting page 12), so that as many patients as possible in Zimbabwe can benefit from expert treatment. We are also investing more in research to help improve the treatment of HIV (starting page 14).
It’s a great joy for me that we’ve been able to work in Zimbabwe for so long, and I look forward with gratitude to our anniversary year in 2023.
Annual Report: Ruedi Lüthy’s editorial
