20100913
africanews

A Zimbabwe court released six health workers on bail, including four from the United States, accused of dispensing AIDS drugs without a licence. The six, who were each freed on $200 bail, are members of a Californian-based Christian volunteer health service which runs two clinics in Zimbabwe working with AIDS orphans and HIV positive patients.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV rates in the world and the destruction of its public health system during a decade of economic crisis has left it largely dependent on donor organisations and church-based institutions for essential health services.

The group, who deny the charges, comprise a doctor, two nurses and a community volunteer from the United States plus a Zimbabwean doctor and another from New Zealand.

They were arrested in Harare on Friday on charges of dispensing medicines to AIDS patients at unlicensed premises and doing so without the supervision of a pharmacist. Magistrate Munamato Mutezo scheduled their case to be heard on September 27.

The health workers' lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, said they faced a fine if found guilty. "It (the prosecution's case) is very poor. I'm actually embarrassed that the state has decided to charge them," Samkange told reporters.