4th November, 2009
By Dagi Kimani -The East African
Tanzania is lagging behind other EAC countries in rolling out treatment for HIV/AIDS, according to a report released by the World Health Organisation, Unicef and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
While Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have over 40 per cent of all HIV-positive people on antiretrovirals, Tanzania’s level has fallen below 28 per cent, the average for low and middle-income countries.
In the EAC, Kenya now has the highest number of people on the life-saving drugs, with over 250,000 receiving ARVs.
Like in Tanzania, treatment programmes in countries like Mozambique and Zimbabwe continue to face various challenges, with their access levels too being below 28 per cent.
According a report released recently by the three agencies, more than 1.3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are now receiving ARV treatment, a dramatic increase over the figure three years ago when only 100,000 people were on treatment and coverage was just 2 per cent.
The rise in the number of those being treated has largely been due to financial support of treatment programmes by donor agencies, including the Global Fund and Pepfar, the US government fund which has now committed to contribute about $50 billion over five years to fight the disease.
Globally, more than four million people in poor countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) at the close of 2008, representing a 36 per cent increase in one year and a tenfold increase over five years, according to the three agencies.
The greatest progress was witnessed in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of all HIV infections occur, with countries like Kenya and Uganda achieving above average treatment rates.
In Botswana, which like South Africa has a prevalence rate in excess of 15 per cent, treatment has reached over 80 per cent of the patients who need it.
But according to the UN report entitled “Towards universal access: scaling up priority HIV/Aids interventions in the health sector,” at least five million people living with HIV still do not have access to life-prolonging treatment and care.
The WHO, Unicef and UNAids attribute the progress made so far in rolling out treatment to availability of cheaper ARVs, including generics, as well as better access to free voluntary counselling and testing services.
“The cost of most first-line regimens decreased by 10-40 per cent between 2006 and 2008,” the organisations noted. “However, second-line regimens continue to be expensive.”
Accessibility to VCT also improved dramatically. In 39 countries, the UN bodies say, the total reported number of HIV tests more than doubled between 2007 and 2008.
In total, 93 per cent of all countries reported that they were providing free HIV testing through public sector health facilities in 2008.
According to the UN report, notable progress was in particular made in 2008 in widening access to HIV services for women and children.
By year end, approximately 45 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women in poor countries were receiving ARVs to prevent HIV transmission to their newborns up from 35 per cent in 2007.
Some 21 per cent of all pregnant women in these countries had an HIV test, up from 15 per cent in 2007.
