Zimbabwe

This volume is the second edition (expanded and revised) of BiAS 4.
The articles in this volume are focused on shedding more light on the relationship between the Bible and Christian practices in African communities, African Churches and Christians. The reader will realise that obviously there is much more than one bridge from text to practise and at the end of the day one can even ask if the Bible suits as a manual for Christian life at all.

Prioritising preventive cancer services in Zimbabwe as the country struggles with unaffordable healthcare To the Editor: The health system in Zimbabwe has collapsed, mainly owing to underfunding and the migration of skilled personnel. [1] Treatment services have consequently become unaffordable to those in need, especially the poor, who make up more than 80% of the population. Of particular focus for this letter, Zimbabwe has not been spared from the rising burden of cancers globally. Cancers account for over a third of premature deaths from noncommunicable diseases in Zimbabwe, compared with South Africa, where they account for a fifth. [2] There are currently concerns regarding inadequate capacity to provide quality cancer care in Zimbabwe. [3] A significant number of deaths from cancers that are treatable if identified early enough, such as cervical and breast cancer, continue to be reported. Unfortunately, reports suggest that patients are struggling to access treatment services in the public sector, and are therefore resorting to alternative sources of treatment such as traditional medicine practitioners, or remote mission hospitals which, even if better staffed and equipped than hospitals in the public sector, offer substandard surgical treatments in inadequately worked up cancer patients. These externally funded mission hospitals are overwhelmed and do not offer adequate follow-up treatment services, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, to all their clients. Several barriers prevent timely and appropriate cancer treatment in Zimbabwe. Firstly, the lack of medical insurance for the majority of the country's citizens results in delays in seeking diagnostic services for potentially cancerous diseases. It is estimated that at least 90% of the country's population is not medically insured. Owing to the prevailing harsh socioeconomic conditions, they may also not have money to pay cash for services. [4] Secondly, the country has a shortage of medical specialists in fields that include early diagnosis of cancer. Many patients are seen by specialists at provincial and tertiary hospitals when they already have advanced disease. The country has fewer than 15 clinical oncologists, [5] who practise only in the country's two major cities, Harare and Bulawayo. Thirdly, the country imports all the medicines used in the treatment of cancer, including chemotherapeutic agents and biological treatments. With the scarcity of foreign currency in the country, importing these medicines is often a challenge. Fourthly, the country has a huge backlog of cancer patients requiring surgical intervention, owing to lack of operating theatre time, equipment and staff. The ongoing attrition of nurses, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, has included hordes of experienced theatre nurses leaving the country. Finally, the country has very few operational radiotherapy machines in the public sector, only available at the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals radiotherapy centre. Patients from all over the country must travel to the capital for cancer treatment services. Ultimately, addressing the public health sector caveats highlighted above will be critical for improving cancer outcomes in Zimbabwe; in the interim, however, reducing the burden of cancer in the country through primordial, primary and secondary prevention is key. Prevention with evidence-based interventions is a cost-effective strategy, with tangible results as witnessed elsewhere. Primordial This open-access article is distributed under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.

The design of API patterns has grown exponentially over the past few years as compared to the old age meaning that the development of APIs has become of essence than back in the days. This is a research project that will look in the field of the Application Programming Interfaces (API) and be able to apply the techniques used, to the main functionality of the development of car hire management systems in Zimbabwe and abroad. The author is going to research mainly about REST APIs, the integration of payment methods so that at the end a theoretical application can be used to come up with a prototype of the API that can be used in above mentioned field. Integrated in the API are various payment methods such as (Ecocash, Telecash) and ZIMRA tax module. Mainly about REST APIs and integration of payment methods with a view of coming up with comprehensive and easy to use APIs [3].

In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective approach for gathering statistically representative information in four low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe). Specifically, we focused on three primary research questions. First, can the mobile phone survey platform reach a nationally representative sample? Second, to what extent does linguistic fractionalization affect the ability to produce a representative sample? Third, how effectively does monetary compensation impact survey completion patterns? We find that samples from countries with higher mobile penetration rates more closely resembled the actual population. After weighting on demographic variables, sample imprecision was a challenge in the two lower feasibility countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique) with a sampling error of +/- 5 to 7 percent, while Zimbabwe’s estimates were more precise (sampling error of +/- 2.8 percent). Surveys performed reasonably well in reaching poor demographics, especially in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Rural women were consistently under-represented in the country samples, especially in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Countries’ linguistic fractionalization may influence the ability to obtain nationally representative samples, although a material effect was difficult to discern through penetration rates and market composition. Although the  experimentation design of the incentive compensation plan was compromised in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it seems that offering compensation for survey completion mitigated attrition rates in several of the pilot countries while not reducing overall costs. These effects varied across countries and cultural settings.

Spending time in a queue for services is not desirable because it causes unpredictability and makes it difficult for travellers to plan their logistics. The study documented the experiences of travellers who crossed the Beitbridge Border Post during the December 2017 festive season peak period. Data was collected through observing and interviewing travellers. The results of the study indicate that border agents at Beitbridge failed to effectively manage human and vehicular traffic thus leading to congestion and long waiting periods. The most serious bottlenecks were: traffic jam along the 5 km stretch before the South African side's processing station and the endless queue to pay for Temporary Import Permit (TIP) documents for foreign vehicles on the Zimbabwean processing side. The study concluded that current facilities are dated and have no capacity to handle the masses of travellers. The Governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe were both unable and unwilling to convert Beitbridge into a One Stop Border Post (OSBP). Commitment and political will to engage with international financiers regarding the creation of the OSBP to ensure a new and faster system with capacity to handle more volumes are lacking. The Beitbridge Border management system requires complete reengineering and redesigning benchmarked with international standards. Management need to adopt better queues management strategies, integrating Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems, eradicating illicit operations, and mounting clear signage to guide travellers. Management must design systems and strategies that minimize customers' waiting time and keep queues within tolerable limits.