Speaking at the opening session of a meeting of the National Coordinating Council of his Ministry, Garrido declared "Even computers and their components have disappeared, here in the Ministry building".
How was it possible, he asked, that in a building such as the Ministry, which only has two exits, computers can be stolen, and nobody sees them leaving.
However, some people are caught - recently three cleaners were stopped as they tried to take assorted state property out of the Ministry building. Garrido believed this was possible because, in a joint operation between the Health and Interior Ministries, the police on the doors of the Ministry had been replaced.
A further success had been the halting of a truck near Beira which contained about 90,000 US dollars worth of medical equipment that was being smuggled to Malawi. These goods had come from Ministry of Health warehouses, and so Garrido concluded that the theft was only possible due to the connivance of some of the Ministry's workers.
Garrido also expressed concern at the poor circulation of information within the Ministry, and at the lack of punctuality.
He demanded that workers should begin their shifts on time - this, he argued, was all "a question of attitude", and he did not want to hear excuses about problems with transport.
All the activities of health workers should be directed towards improving the quality of service to the public. That, the Minister said, "demands greater commitment from each of us. It presupposes changes in the way we organise our work".
Turning to clinical matters, Garrido attacked the health service performance over tuberculosis as "miserable".
Tuberculosis screening rates were "unacceptably low".
For Garrido, the gradual increase in cases of tuberculosis with negative baciloscopy and of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis constituted a serious challenge.
The Minister was also concerned that the fight against leprosy was not progressing as well as it should. The northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula still report leprosy rates that are higher than three cases per 10,000 inhabitants.
However, Niassa, Zambezia and Manica provinces have cut their leprosy rates from 2.59 cases per 10,000 in 2005 to just 1.6 cases per 10,000. Yet in Sofala province the disease seemed to have made something of a comeback, and was now posing "serious problems".
Garrido called on all health workers to commit themselves to ensuring that Mozambique can win the status of a country free of leprosy by 2008.
The picture was much better when it came to the expanded vaccination programme (PAV), which has come close to eliminating measles. Garrido said that in 2004, there were about 10,000 cases of measles diagnosed, leading to 29 deaths. The figure rose to over 12,500 cases and 59 deaths in 2005.
But the ensuing national vaccination campaign against measles and polio ensured that in 2006 only 203 cases of measles were reported, and nobody died from the disease.
"This result shows concretely the benefits of the protection that vaccination can give to chidlren", declared Garrido.
As for the disease which is still the largest single cause of death, malaria, Garrido noted a decline in the number of cases - but insisted on the need for further protective measures through the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, and spraying against mosquitos.
"The spraying must be done in August each year, and must not fail as has happened in the past", said Garrido. He instructed all provincial directors of health to ensure that the conditions for successful spraying campaigns were in place by June of each year, at the latest.
As for the insecticide-treated bed nets, "we need about ten million, but we don't even have a million and a half", said the minister.
Turning to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Garrido noted a vigorous expansion in 2006 of treating HIV-positive people with the life- prolonging anti-retroviral drugs. By the end of the year, 44,100 patients were receiving anti-retroviral therapy, and it was available in 80 per cent of the country's 128 districts.
SOURCE: AIM
