Doctors and pharmacists have warned that lives are on the line as access to medicines dries up in Zimbabwe.
"There are no drugs available in the public health facilities, and the situation is dire as well in the private sector," said Norman Matara, a medical doctor and board member for the advocacy group Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights.
"People are sourcing medicine from neighbouring countries," he said. "We are going to see more people developing complications, and also premature deaths.
"We are finding it difficult to prescribe drugs. Instead of prescribing what's good for the patient, we are forced to prescribe what's there."
Many pharmacies have shut down and reopened with new prices on drugs, with many accepting foreign currency only.
Portifa Mwendera, the president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe, said pharmacists needed to charge in dollars to procure medicines.
Among those affected is Alice Chenyika, 50, who for the past five years has kept her blood pressure under control with daily doses of nifedipine. Twice when she tried to buy more, the medicine was out of stock. Now she can no longer afford the price.
TAKING HERBS
When the medicine was back in stock, her pharmacy charged $24 (about R756) for a month's supply instead of the former $6 (R84).
"I've started taking herbs as an alternative," said Chenyika, who lives on her late husband's $300 pension from which she pays $200 a month to a housing co-operative that built the house she lives in.
Pensioner Martin Kapeta, 71, has resorted to skipping some doses of the two drugs he takes for diabetes and hypertension.
Kapeta gets a monthly pension of $153 and needs $57 for a month's supply of the two drugs - amlodipine and actraphane. Previously he paid $12.
"This is not the life we used to live. Those in authority should do something or we will die," Kapeta said.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has faced a new wave of turmoil as prices rocket and shortages spread, from bread to fuel.
The latest trouble erupted last month when finance minister Mthuli Ncube slapped a 2% tax on electronic transactions.
Last month drivers queued for hours for rationed petrol and those people with money stockpiled food.
The shortages have created a thriving black market, with a litre of cooking oil sold on the street for up to $12 instead of $3.70.
Mnangagwa, writing this week in the Financial Times of London, said the economic reforms adopted by his government were "harsh, but the patient required it to live".
The upheaval in the medical sector has also brought difficulties for the medical aid associations.
Medical-aid clients pay monthly subscriptions to the schemes, but pharmacies are refusing to accept medical aid cards, insisting on US dollars only for medicines.
An official at Fidelity Life Medical Aid Society (Flimas) in Harare said the institution had not increased subscriptions for its members.
"Subscriptions have not been revised as yet," the official said.
"We definitely cannot match the current medical inflation. We are, however, engaging the ministry of health and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe through the Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe to bring sanity and allow members to access required health services," said the official, who asked not to be named.
"Most pharmacies are asking for US dollars … using the black-market rate. As Flimas, we have engaged pharmacies and they are accepting our card. Hospitals are still taking medical aid but charging members co-payments on sundries."
At a cabinet briefing this week, health minister Obadiah Moyo said it was illegal for pharmacies to insist on payment only in US dollars and to refuse other forms of payment.
"It is very worrying for our retail pharmacists to continue charging in US dollars. We know that the US dollar is almost nonexistent in Zimbabwe. We know the poor are suffering to access medicines and there is someone who is charging in a currency that is not easily available in Zimbabwe. We continue urging the retailers to resist charging in foreign currency and to accept medical aid cards," he said.
Allocations to the health ministry are likely to also come into sharp focus this week when the finance minister presents his maiden budget statement to Parliament on Thursday.
Ncube is expected to roll out austerity measures while at the same time meeting expectations of annual bonuses for public servants and the purchase of vehicles for ministers and legislators.
The economic reforms which Mnangagwa's government announced last month have earned him some support in various quarters.
Billionaire businessman and telecoms tycoon Strive Masiyiwa said Mnangagwa was "sincere" and called on the US to end sanctions imposed nearly two decades ago. - Additional reporting by AFP..