Donor cuts hurts Aids in Africa
2010-05-27 21:10
Special Report
The availability of the antiretroviral (ARV) tenofovir has improved in Gauteng over the past weeks, the provincial health department says following a report that some provinces were running low on ARVs.
Johannesburg - International donors are cutting back on Aids support, hurting the fight against the epidemic across Africa, an international medical aid group said on Thursday.
Doctors are turning away patients in South Africa.
Kenyans fear clinics will run out of money.
Health policy makers in Mozambique and Uganda say they can't afford to follow international standards relating to treatment commencement.
The medical co-ordinator in South Africa for Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, Dr Eric Goemaere, said donors were citing the global recession as a reason for cutbacks, but pointed out that there was no excuse for backing off on commitments to step up the fight against Aids.
"How can we guarantee a long-term commitment? Because we are talking about a lifetime disease" he said on Thursday, the same day the group released the results of its study of Aids treatment in Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe, among the countries hardest hit by the epidemic.
- AP