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U.N. Releases Report on AIDS Treatment

Posted on: Thursday, 25 May 2006, 06:00 CDT

By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS - Denial, food shortages and squandered resources were among the problems preventing thousands of AIDS patients from getting treatment in countries hardest hit by the disease, according to a report by treatment activists.

The findings were in an update released Wednesday by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, a group that reported in November on the reasons countries failed to meet the U.N. goal of treating 3 million people infected by HIV and AIDS by the end of 2005. Only 1.3 million people received treatment.

In the update, the coalition reported some progress in the last six months. But it warned that "serious barriers" still plague the delivery of treatment, citing halfhearted leadership efforts, weak management, poor logistics, stigma and inadequate funding.

The group of 700 treatment activists from more than 100 countries released the report ahead of next week's U.N. General Assembly special session on HIV and AIDS. Government ministers from more than 100 countries are expected to reaffirm their commitment to the goal of near universal access to drug treatment by 2010.

The report focused on six of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic - the Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia and South Africa.

"Today, universal access is just a slogan," said Fatima Hassan, author of the South Africa chapter and a member of the country's AIDS Law Project. "It cannot be achieved unless we have a coordinated strategy with adequate funding and management."

An international alliance of AIDS activists has called for setting a new treatment target of "10 by 10" - 10 million people having access to treatment by 2010, the coalition said.

"But the international community seems to have gone out of its way to avoid setting explicit global treatment targets that would focus attention on specific outcomes," it said.

While there is evidence of hard work and good intentions, change is coming far too slowly, the coalition said.

In the Dominican Republic, 3,200 people were receiving free anti-retroviral medicine by April, an increase of more than 500 people in five months and a complete turnaround from the situation two years ago.

But that still leaves an estimated 8,000 to 25,000 people in need of treatment in the Caribbean country, the update said. There has also been no significant improvement in access to treatment in impoverished areas, the report said. Scarce resources have been wasted and government and donor agencies are not cooperating efficiently, it added.

In Kenya, AIDS treatment services have been undercut by food shortages, a dearth of health workers, a weak drug supply chain and insufficient access to information, the report said. Of the 220,000 people believed to be in need of drugs, only 70,000 are receiving anti-retrovirals.

Nigeria has opened more treatment centers but the cancellation of two grants by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, is "potentially devastating" to the government's goal of reaching 250,000 people by the end of the year, the update said.

India's target was to have 355,000 people on anti-retroviral drugs by the end of 2005. By the end of February, however, only 35,700 were getting them, the report said. The coalition called for an overhaul of national treatment guidelines and said more needs to be done to reach children.

Just over 5,000 of the 50,000 Russians needing treatment were receiving anti-retrovirals by May. But the coalition said it was hopeful the "woeful situation" would change as a result of a massive campaign to increase financial support from donors and the government.

In South Africa, between 200,000 and 220,000 people are on anti-retrovirals. But inadequate government leadership and pervasive AIDS denial were among the leading obstacles to reaching more patients, especially children and men, the report said.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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