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Zimbabwe Fails to Meet WHO Target of Providing Drugs to AIDS Patients

Posted on: Wednesday, 4 January 2006, 09:00 CST

Zimbabwe fails to meet WHO target of providing drugs to AIDS patients

HARARE, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe has failed to meet the World Health Organization (WHO) target of providing life prolonging anti- retroviral drugs (ARVs) to at least 120,000 HIV/ AIDS patients by the end of last year, local newspaper The Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday.

Lack of adequate foreign currency and reluctance by the public to undergo voluntary HIV testing were largely blamed for the failure, it said.

The WHO target, also known as the 3 by 5 initiative, was set up in 2001 with the aim of providing ARVs to 3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005.

The equation translates into 120,000 people in Zimbabwe which has an estimated 1.82 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

However, only 10 percent of them know their status about 20 percent of whom require ARVs.

The head of TB and AIDS Unit in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Owen Mugurungi, has said as of the end of last August, 17,500 people were on Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) -- falling far short of the expected beneficiaries.

Mugurungi attributed the failure to reluctance by people to undergo HIV testing. In mid-2005, the ministry started placing 1, 500 new clients on the government ARVs rollout program and 6,000 cases were screened every month.

If that trend had continued, Zimbabwe would have placed 22,500 people on ARVs by December 31, below half the target.

However, because foreign currency shortages continued to dog the country's sole drug manufacturer, Varichem Pharmaceuticals, since October, all efforts to make free ARVs accessible to the majority who require them have failed.

To date, more than 20 sites ranging from central, provincial, district and mission hospitals are administering the life prolonging drugs.

Zimbabwe has also passed the phase of treating HIV/AIDS as a scourge but transformed perceptions to a manageable, chronic illness.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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