Food In Swaziland

SWAZILAND: No hospital care for cancer patients

MBABANE, 24 June 2011 (IRIN) - More than 300 Swazi cancer patients being treated in South African hospitals have been repatriated according to Swaziland the Cancer Association of Swaziland, (CANASWA), after the government of King Mswati III could not meet their medical costs.

Swaziland is experiencing acute financial pressures. “The entire fleet of [government] cars, except for emergency vehicles” and those used by the security services, has been grounded, said an official who declined to be identified. The other exception is transport for Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The government is the country’s largest employer. Social services are being cut and public servants may not be paid after the end of June 2011. One fuel supplier alone is owed R17 million (US$2.42 million) and the lack of transport is constraining the activities of government personnel from agricultural field officers to health service providers, the official said.

The Ministry of Agriculture reported on 23 June that there is a 29,000 ton shortfall in the annual maize requirement - the country’s staple food - of about 114,000 tons, which will be filled by imports, but did not say how this will be financed.

No chemotherapy

Most of the cancer patients in South Africa were recipients of a special fund for the poor - in the absence of a national health system - but Health Minister Benedict Xaba told parliament recently the fund was exhausted.

“Unfortunately, we do not have the chemotherapy equipment to truly treat these patients,” Timothy Vilakati, from CANASWA, told IRIN. “Normally, we refer such patients to South Africa, but that has been suspended because of government’s economic crisis.”

The Swaziland Hospice at Home, located in the industrial town of Matsapha, about 30km east of the capital, Mbabane has been assisting. “What we do is provide pain therapy. We have the drugs, like morphine, which we administer at the patients’ homes. Most of our financing has come from government, so we really must look more to our international donors,” Vilakati said.

Finance Minister Majozi Sithole said a loan application to the African Development Bank had been declined. South Africa’s deputy finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, has confirmed that Swaziland approached them for a loan, but not the amount requested. South Africa is struggling with extremely high unemployment.

Swaziland: Coping strategies wear thin in ongoing food crisis ...

MBABANE, 16 October 2007 (IRIN) - While aid agencies and the Swazi government scramble to keep a major catastrophe at bay, the mounting food crisis means more and more Swazis can only cope by drastically scaling down food intake and scouring the fields for edible weeds.

About 40 percent of Swaziland's one million people are facing acute food and water shortages. For most, coping with the food scarcity means cutting back on depleted consumption, already endangering the health of thousands according to Comparisons of Coping Mechanisms 2006/2007, a recently released joint annual study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).

"Over 50 percent of adults are eating less. Over 60 percent are limiting or reducing meal portions. Over 30 percent of the population is skipping meals entirely," the report said. "Those not eating for an entire day or consuming a green [wild] crop, grew - over 30 percent of Swazis are consuming more than the usual amount of wild foods."

Samantha Simelane, a widow with two daughters, is one of them. "We Swazis have been eating this umbhidvo [a type of indigenous spinach] for generations," she said, picking her way through a small field beside her homestead in rural Sigombeni, 20km north of the central commercial town, Manzini.

Simelane has always supplemented her diet with wild plants, but these roots and weeds, eaten without the maizemeal that is the Swazis' staple food, are now often the only meal she and her children have each day.

"The children cry that their bellies are hurting them; I feel so sorry for them," she said. "I am famished myself, so I feel weak most times, but I tell my children if we eat what little we have instead of stretching it out, we will surely starve at some point."

Beyond drought

The drought that has persisted since 2002 became significantly worse in 2007, while HIV/AIDS has reduced food production by eliminating adult farmers and household heads. According to UN estimates, 33.4 percent of Swazis between the ages of 15 and 49 are HIV positive - the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world.

The Swaziland Drought Flash Appeal, launched in July to request assistance from international donors, warned: "Poor households are reported to have engaged in negative coping strategies, including transactional sex, leading to a higher incidence of sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

come help pack food for orphans in Swaziland today! At newlifechurch in the activity center by the tent!

great to see a push for sustainable food in Africa - "Swaziland to tap Malaysia's Agro-technology Expertise"

The Swazi rural homestead

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