Shortages of antiretroviral drugs will soon be a thing of the past as more funding for the anti-HIV drugs has been secured, says National Aids Council Chief Executive Officer, Tapuwa Magure.
In an interview, Magure said the last quarter of the year would see more people on the ARV waiting list receiving treatment as the US Government and Global Fund have confirmed more support.
“The US Government used to support 80 000 people on ARVs in Zimbabwe and in October will add 60 000 more people. It also intends to add another 20 000 patients before the end of 2014. We have just started receiving deliveries of ARVs under GF Round 8 Phase 2 to cater for 240 000 people on ART.
“Currently about 500 000 out of 600 000 people on the ARV waiting list are getting drugs and, by year end, drug shortages will be a thing of the past,” said Magure. He said the Aids Levy covered 40 percent of people on ARVs and recently won accolades in Washington DC, during the just ended International Aids Conference.
“As a country, we should increase our capacity to locally fund HIV mitigations to avoid depending on donor funding”.
If we cover 80 percent of people needing ARVs, then we are regarded as having achieved universal access under the international standards, but we are targeting 100 percent.
“I urge our people to go for HIV tests and CD4 counts so that we can establish how many people really need to be put on ARVs,” said Magure.
Last year, the country adopted WHO guidelines to initiate people living with HIV from a CD4 count of 200 to 350, a move that increased the number of people on the ART waiting list from 450 000 to over 600 000.
Despite a decline in the prevalence rate from a peak of 27 percent to 13.7 percent in the last decade, Zimbabwe still ranks among the highest HIV-burdened countries in the world.
