The United States Embassy in Harare has disputed recent claims by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Zhemu Soda over the US$365 million health deal Zimbabwe rejected late last year.
Zhemu told Parliament that the US government had sought to collect private health data for medical research and that the government was not convinced the arrangement would benefit Zimbabweans.
He said the government felt it could not risk the lives of its people when it was unsure of the request’s intent.
However, a US Embassy spokesperson who spoke to NewZimbabwe.com said Soda’s remarks were a mischaracterisation of the terms of the Health Memorandum of Understanding that Zimbabwe rejected.
“We reject the recent mischaracterisation of the terms of the Health Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) made by a high-level Government of Zimbabwe official, which described the MOU as a threat,” said the US Embassy spokesperson.
“In fact, it would have provided $365 million in lifesaving assistance over five years for Zimbabwean health programs, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health, laboratories, and outbreak response.
“The MOU required very reasonable conditions: that the Zimbabwean government co-invest, assuring sustainability of the programs; provide financial accountability and transparency to guarantee funds benefit the people and communities of Zimbabwe; and share specimens when outbreaks occur, which is a long-standing global practice to develop solutions quickly.”
The embassy official insisted that assertions that the United States was seeking personal data of Zimbabweans were false, adding that any suggestion that Zimbabweans would not have benefitted from American medical research was disproved by decades of US assistance, through which Zimbabweans have received American treatments and vaccines.
The official said the same programme had been successfully presented to 34 countries with a total of US$14.3 billion in health funding.
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