THE US government has launched the distribution of R900 million of antiretrovirals in South Africa while denying reports it was decreasing funding for the management of the disease. Ambassador Donald Gips said the money would buy enough drugs to meet one-third of that needed by the country for the next 18 to 24 months. Cabinet approved a 33 percent increase in the budget for the prevention, treatment and management of HIV/AIDS in March to R8 billion - the biggest increase any department received. However, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that if these kinds of increases continued and targets to reduce the spread of the disease were not reached, Treasury would collapse. The R900 million was an additional pledge made out of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar). It followed an earlier contribution towards antiretrovirals (ARVs) made on World AIDS Day in December. Meanwhile, Medecins sans Frontières (MSF) said that donor funding towards HIV/AIDS programmes was shrinking and this could lead to deaths. MSF health policy analyst Dr Mit Phillips said international donors were "flat-lining" and direct funds for AIDS treatment was being affected. Phillips said that US President Barack Obama's Pepfar reduced its budget for ARV treatment in 2009. In 2010 it froze its overall HIV/AIDS budget. However, a subsequent statement by the US government denied this, saying their funding had actually increased. They said US funding for Pepfar had risen from nearly US2.3 billion in 2004 (for bilateral HIV/AIDS programmes, the Global Fund, and bilateral tuberculosis programmes) to US6.8 billion in 2010. For the financial year 2011, Obama had requested nearly US7 billion, including US5.74 billion for bilateral HIV/AIDS programmes, US1 billion for the Global Fund, and US251 million for bilateral tuberculosis programmes. Motsoaledi said recently South Africa was treating 920 000 people for HIV/AIDS at state hospitals, with 400 000 of those treated funded by the Global Fund. The number of people needing treatment was expected to increase as a result of the government's programme to test 15 million people for the HIV virus by 2011, and its goal of providing ARVs to 80 percent of the people who have the virus. In terms of the new plan, all HIV-positive children under one year old would get treatment. In addition, all patients with both TB and HIV would get treatment if their CD4 count was 350 or less. Gips said the drugs bought with the additional R900 million over the planned period would be sourced from local South African vendors and would be in line with the registration and regulation requirements of the Medicines Control Council and the US's Food and Drug Administration. He said the cost savings realised through focused and efficient procurements were critical for the long-term sustainability of the South African HIV programme. Gips said the initiative for expanding treatment access to more people in need meant that South Africa was serving as a true leader to its own people and as a demonstrated example of commitment for the rest of the continent. Figures vary on South Africa's infection rate but South Africa counts for only 0.7 percent of the world's population, yet carries 17 percent of the global HIV burden.

SAPA, 28 May 2010