HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean police have arrested four health workers from the United States on suspicion of dispensing AIDS drugs without a licence, the U.S. embassy said on Sunday.
An embassy statement said the four members of a Christian volunteer health service of the Oakland, California-based Allen Temple AIDS ministry were arrested in Harare on Friday and are expected to appear in court on Monday.
The group, which denies the charges, includes a doctor, two nurses and a community volunteer, the embassy said.
“They operated from two clinics, one in Mutoko and one in Harare, where they worked primarily with AIDS orphans and HIV positive patients for the past decade,” the embassy said.
Police officials were not immediately available to comment, but weekend state media reports quoted a spokesman saying the Americans were among a group of six, including Zimbabweans, arrested for operating an unregistered clinic.
“We have picked up the six for questioning in connection with practising without a premises’ licence and dispensing medicines without the supervision of a pharmacist,” a spokesman told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe has one of the worst HIV prevalence rates in the world, although the rate has declined in recent years.
A decade-long economic crisis, blamed on President Robert Mugabe’s policies, has paralysed the country’s public health system, highlighted by its failure to cope with a 2008-09 cholera outbreak which killed 4,000 people.
