Presenting his annual budget on Wednesday, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said the government will spend an extra 2.1 billion rand (US $247 million) over the next three years to double the number of people receiving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Dedicated HIV/AIDS spending by health, education, and social development departments will top 6.5 billion rand (US $848 million) annually by 2011, Manuel said.
The additional funding will help bring the total number of people receiving ARVs through the public health system to 900,000. Last year, the government launched a new HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program that set a target of 1.4 million people on ARVs by 2010. While the cash infusion is welcome, said Mark Heywood of the AIDS Law Project, it still leaves about a half-million patients short of the government's goal.
The scale of South Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis, it has the world's largest caseload at 5.4 million infections, is largely due to inaction and dubious beliefs on the part of President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, critics say. After a long delay, Tshabalala-Msimang earlier this month published guidelines on mother-to-children HIV prevention that call for dual therapy, AZT and nevirapine, in accordance with longstanding World Health Organization recommendations.
But the health ministry's ambivalent attitude toward AIDS drugs was evident earlier this month when a doctor in hard-hit KwaZulu-Natal province was temporarily suspended for prescribing dual therapy to pregnant women without awaiting official approval. Hundreds of health professions signed a petition demanding that Dr. Colin Pfaff be reinstated. Pfaff, who works in an area where almost 40 percent of pregnant women are HIV-positive, said Wednesday that hospital authorities told him the charges had been dropped.
02/20/08
SOUTH AFRICA: Budget Provides for Increase in AIDS Funding for Medicines
Source: Associated Press:: Clare Nullis; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention