Washington DC, US – Zimbabwe’s AIDS success is under threat due to funding gaps for anterotroviral (ARV) drugs which threatens to affect almost 70,000, according to a report issued by Medicens Sans Frontieres.
The report stated that national ARV buffer stocks are currently being depleted to cover some of the shortages. The country is already eating into its allotted Global Fund money to cater for the current treatment gaps, a scenario that will result in an estimated 428,068 people eligible for treatment unable to access ARVs by 2014.
While the country has recorded major success with ARV coverage growing from five per cent in 2006, to 77 per cent among adults and 39 per cent among children, there is a danger that the lives of 435,000 adults and 41,000 under treatment could be put in jeopardy.
According to the MSF report, Zimbabwe’s AIDS levy currently pays for over 25 percent of its ARVs, it has not yet been possible to close the treatment gap.
“The immediate funding gaps in Zimbabwe are due to the transitioning out of a pooled donor fund (the Expanded Support Programme) by the end of 2011. Funding for ARVs was not part of the new basket fund initiative (Health Transition Fund), as the assumption was that providing ARVs for the supproeted ARV cohort would be done with domestic and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) support,” stated the report.
The report added that donors such as US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Department of International Development (DfID) are now trying to help close the HIV treatment gap. But most of these efforts will not be felt until later this year or early next year putting many people’s lives at risk.
“The GFATM will need to address a significant part of this shortfall, while additional funds to continue initiating new patients on ARV treatment also need to be ensured,” read part of the report.
“Zimbabwe has played a key role in changing the face of the epidemic in the region and globally. Right now, all of Zimbabwe’s success are under serious threat due to the treatment gaps, and that’s why PEPFAR must channel the bulk of its funds towards this urgent priority,”said Chamunorwa Mashoko, an community activist and one of AVAC’s 2012 HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Fellow.
HIV/TB Advisor for MSF in Southern Africa, Dr Eric Goemaere, said that increased global funding is still required in the fight against the epidemic.
“Globally we’re finally past the halfway mark with HIV treatment. Health ministries are working hard to implement latest treatment recommendations and policies to get ahead of the wave of new infections, but they can’t do it alone. We need to see a dramatic increase in global support to fight this plague,” he said.
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