Nigeria to double free AIDS treatment centers

By Estelle Shirbon

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria will double the number of
government centers where AIDS patients can get free drugs in
the next three months as part of a major drive to widen access
to treatment, the government anti-AIDS agency said on Friday.

Nigeria started distributing anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs)
for free this month from 33 government health facilities,
scrapping a 1,000 naira ($8) fee that patients previously had
to pay for subsidized drugs.

“We plan to add an additional 33 centers in the first
quarter,” Babatunde Osotimehin, chairman of the National Action
Committee on AIDS (NACA), said in an interview with Reuters.

Nigeria has 3.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS, the
third-highest number in the world after India and South Africa,
and an estimated 40,000 people on ARVs.

Osotimehin said he was confident that NACA’s target of
getting 250,000 people on the drugs by the end of this year
would be met, partly because the drugs can now be obtained free
of charge.

“There will be greater equity. We are not yet in a position
to have universal access, but the fact that poor people will be
able to access drugs is a major progress,” he said.

Two thirds of Nigeria’s estimated 140 million people live
on less than a dollar a day, and AIDS charities had long argued
that the 1,000 naira fee put the drugs beyond the reach of
many.

Osotimehin said it would now be easier for people to take
the right doses of drugs without interruption, which is
important because taking insufficient, irregular doses causes
the body to develop resistance to ARVs.

“The issue of reduced response to drugs over the long term
can be brought down to the bare minimum,” he said.

EXTRA COSTS

Relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres said the free
drugs program did not go far enough because patients would
still have to pay for expensive tests that are vital to monitor
treatment, and for drugs for opportunistic infections.

In response, Osotimehin said the government would also
subsidize those tests and drugs but it was still studying how
it would do so. Treatment for tuberculosis, one of the more
common illnesses among AIDS patients, was already free in
Nigeria.

He said full HIV/AIDS care including tests was free for
children and pregnant women — a key part of efforts to prevent
the transmission of the virus from mother to child.

Funding for the free care is coming from government and
from major donors such as the World Bank, the U.S. government
and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Osotimehin defended NACA’s work against criticism from a
Global Fund panel which said late last year it would recommend
terminating two grants worth $80 million over five years, after
they have run for only two years.

The panel said it had “serious concerns” about NACA’s
ability to implement the grants, citing missed targets,
questionable data, failure to set up a computerized accounting
system and low disbursement.

Osotimehin said all of those concerns had been addressed.
The problems stemmed from a long delay in starting work, due to
bureaucracy at NACA and at the Global Fund, he said.

“Because of the delays it was difficult to meet targets,”
he said, adding that the agency now had the required
computerized system and had sent full accounts of funds
disbursed and drugs delivered to Global Fund headquarters in
Geneva.