HIV/AIDS has ravaged communities in northern Zimabawe's Guruve district, leaving old people who in past times were looked after by society toiling to keep alive frail children orphaned by the pandemic, reports Tsitsi Matope.

The people of Guruve are some of the poorest in Zimbabwe. Poverty has driven girls as young as 12 to drop out of school and take to prostitution. Kachuta village in lower Guruve is typical - a forgotten community where the catastrophe of HIV/AIDS has also hit food production and other livelihoods.

In Kachuta, women of 80 are forced to take up household chores that include fetching water from more than two miles (three kilometres) away. Others seek ways to generate income. In some cases the elderly take care of the sick.

All must now shoulder responsibility for tilling the land to grow food to feed children orphaned by AIDS.

"I need to look after the family - my grandchildren who are now orphans," said Mbuya Zivei Romo as she wove mats to sell. "This brings in a little bit of money for soap and salt."

She said her legs were weak and her body feeble, but she spends most of her afternoons standing up to operate a home-made loom making mats to sell for between $500 and $1,000 Zimbabwean dollars each - paltry sums given Zimbabwe's 1,000 percent inflation. She also makes special clay pots and wooden plates on request.

Mbuya Romo also works with her elderly sister, Mbuya Lydia Romo, who farms the land to grow food for the family.

"We are a family of 14 and we need to grow enough food for the whole year," Mbuya Lydia Romo said. "We do not usually sell much in case we run out of maize and peanuts."

The people of Kachuta are intensive small-scale farmers. One resident, Anderaesi Chigwe, said: "We grow a lot of cotton and this to an extent has enabled us to send children orphaned by AIDS to school. Many farmers here are elderly grandparents."

The area is rich in wildlife resources and communities have made proposals to the Guruve rural district council to give a percentage of profits from that sector to benefit child-headed homes and families headed by the elderly.

Many orphans in the area drop out of primary school before graduating, making them vulnerable to child labour and prostitution.

Although the government has introduced economic reforms meant to reduce extreme poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS on communities, they are diluted by inflation.

Cuts in school meals programmes have led to malnutrition in poor, remote villages like Rushinga, Mutoko, Binga, Hwange, Mukumbura, Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe, Bulilima and Insiza. Many orphans and elderly there are malnourished and succumbing to opportunistic diseases.

HIV/AIDS experts say Zimbabwe needs to establish a comprehensive food and nutrition surveillance system to provide accurate, credible and timely information to help decision-making at all levels.

About 1.8 million Zimbabweans of a population of some 9 million are infected with the HIV virus. Antiretroviral drugs are not readily available and many don't live long enough to secure a place on the national anti-retroviral therapy programme.

Only about 400 people are taking part in the national programme. A further 300 receive treatment at expensive private health institutions. More than 200 poor people are on hospital waiting lists for national anti-retroviral treatment.