 Until 2008, the government insisted that there was no cholera in Zimbabwe, and Pruyt says the U.N. did not provide the country with safe drinking water until after the crisis started.Meldrum says that, during Zimbabwe's continuing HIV/AIDS dilemma, some major international donors did not give much money because they believed it would help President Mugabe stay in power, which they did not want.As the outbreak and health crisis grew worse, American and British leaders cited the crisis as further proof that it was, in their view, "well past time for (President) Robert Mugabe to leave" and that Zimbabwe had become a failed state.