MPs Warned of Looming Funding Crisis for AIDS Drugs. 23/01/09

Business Day

23/01/09

CAPE TOWN — The government’s AIDS programme is heading for a funding crisis, deputy chairman of the South African National AIDS Council Mark Heywood has warned.

Speaking to members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU’s) advisory committee on HIV/AIDS in Parliament yesterday, Heywood said the government had failed to budget in line with the cost estimates laid out in its National Strategic AIDS Plan (NSP). The five-year plan was launched 18 months ago, and put a R45bn price tag on meeting its targets, which include treating four-fifths of those in need by 2011.

The NSP estimated that by last year it would cost between R6,4bn and R6,85bn to fund the government’s HIV/AIDS programmes, including providing antiretroviral treatment. However, the government had set aside only R4,5bn for AIDS last year, according to health department deputy director-general for strategic health programmes Yogan Pillay.

He told Business Day the state would increasingly need to rely on donor funding as there was little direct financial commitment from the private sector. The biggest foreign donor was the US, which allocated 7% of the R590m it earmarked for SA last year to treatment, provided largely through mission hospitals, he said.

By December, almost 700000 patients had started treatment in the public sector, though no figures were available for those who quit or died.

SA was “running into serious problems” as more people sought treatment than was budgeted for. The gap between demand and supply would widen unless the government found more money. An estimated 5,7-million South Africans were infected with HIV, and 1,8-million were expected to need treatment by 2011, he said.

The funding issue hit the headlines late last year, when the Free State ordered doctors to stop enrolling new HIV patients on treatment programmes as it had run out of money. Health Minister Barbara Hogan ordered emergency funds to be sent to the province, but it appears the extra cash fell short of what was needed.

Heywood read part of a letter he received on Wednesday from a doctor in the province who said patients were dying as they waited for treatment. The only new patients getting drugs were children and pregnant women. Those on antiretrovirals faced uncertainty over supplies of life-saving medication.

“At present the pharmacy at National Hospital only has 3TC stock for two days, and the depot tells us they have not got much either,” said the letter.

The IPU advisory committee on HIV/AIDS will submit a report on its findings on SA’s handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to Parliament, which will be debated in the National Assembly in March, chairwoman Henriette Bogopane-Zulu said.