This is shocking, indeed, but hardly unique! The entire population of Liwale District, about 80,000 people, depend on 22 rural health facilities manned by only seven clinical officers.

Until recently, Lindi and Mtwara regions were literally cut off from the rest of the country due to lack of reliable road transport, electricity and water supply.

This affected not only the health sector, but also education, and agriculture. In fact, there was a time a civil servant assigned to work in the two regions, quit the civil service rather than report there. It's late of the backwardness of the southern zone.

The public health sector is suffering from a huge shortage of trained manpower and lack of basic medical equipment.

According to some health workers, they use their eyes to diagnose malaria because they can't carry out the tests.

This situation is awful, and this at a when the entire developing world is striving hard to reduce maternal and infant mortality. How does one guarantee safe delivery where expectant mothers have to rely mostly on traditional birth attendants. This is why fistula and other reproductive health problems are very common.

But all is not lost. The situation is bound to change soon after the completion of the construction of the Dar es Salaam-Mtwara highway and the opening of the Mtwara corridor linking Tanzania and the southern Africa countries.