The dip in funding levels for HIV and AIDS programmes will undoubtedly put paid years of progress in the response to the epidemic in sub Saharan Africa. Reduced funding will not only cause more deaths, but also in more offloading of responsibility to poor and marginalized communities. Persons in need of care will increasingly have to resort to already over-burdened community and home based care providers, mainly women and girls.
Given that the financial drawback for AIDS programmes is occurring at a time when two million people are still dying each year in sub-Saharan Africa due to the disease, the consequences for will be drastic particularly at community and familial levels.
“The donor turn-around will not make the patients in need of life-saving treatment go away. On the contrary, it is likely to increase the numbers of people in urgent need of care and will negatively impact their family, community and the health care system. In the end, the cost of inaction will be far higher than that of action,” states a recent report by Medecins Sans Frontieres titled, “No Time to Quit: HIV/AIDS Treatment Gap Widening in Africa.” Continue reading
