"Burying people every day" as funding crisis hits AIDS

By Carola Frentzen and Henry Wasswa Dec 8, 2011, 15:06 GMT

Addis Ababa/Kampala - Money was the overriding theme at a major international conference on HIV/AIDS that focused on Africa and drew to an end in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Thursday, amid growing concern over funding during the economic crisis.

The Global Fund (GF) set up to fight the epidemic and other major fatal infections has announced it would cut funding in the next allocation round.

What will happen to the millions of HIV/AIDS patients in Africa, experts asked at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA).

At the end of the five-day gathering, GF deputy executive director Debrework Zewdie felt compelled to reassure those benefiting from the fund, which is the world's largest backer in the fight against infectious diseases.

'Everyone who is on treatment funded by the GF will stay on treatment,' she said. This means that the programmes already up and running will continue to distribute antiretroviral medication.

All African countries are being asked to tell the GF how much money they need to continue with current projects.

The fund - set up in 2002 largely at the instigation of Microsoft founder Bill Gates to combat malaria and tuberculosis as well as AIDS - had provisionally set aside funds to cover its ongoing work, Zewdie said.

But the GF will not be able to finance urgently-needed new programmes or extend any existing schemes, at least not for the next few years as the global financial crisis casts its shadow over donors.

This bad news has hit the fund just as it managed to demonstrate clear progress, with a decline in the rate of new infections caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in sub-Saharan Africa.

'This is not a wonderful time, this is a terrible time, and it will set us back,' Zewdie said. 'And of course the worst time to postpone a round of financing is when you are getting results.'

Uganda is one of the countries looking to the future with unease.

Around 300,000 of the relatively small east African state's 1.2 million HIV-positive patients are on life-saving medication. A further 300,000 are waiting for their turn to be included in the programme.

'The future cut in assistance by the Global Fund will seriously affect our patients,' Juliet Sedi of the HIV/AIDS organization Hospice Africa told dpa.

'Some people are already dying because they cannot access antiretroviral medication.'

Every day, Sedi is confronted with the sad reality of her work - the desperation and fear that dominates the lives of many HIV/AIDS patients.

'One of our patients committed suicide recently, because his daughter told him she could not raise 110,000 shillings (about 50 dollars) to maintain his welfare,' Sedi said.

'If the GF cuts the donations, we will be burying people every day,' she said.

Doctors without Borders recently sketched out a gloomy future.

'This will signify a return to the beginning of the 2000s, when caregivers had to choose which of their patients had the greater chance of surviving,' the organization said. 'This choice is utterly unacceptable - and inconceivable for 2011.'

But criticism of African governments was also heard at ICASA.

African countries had to start finding resources to bring this substantially African problem under control, delegates said.

Zainab Akol, who works for the Ugandan Health Ministry in Kampala, told dpa that preparations were underway for 'all eventualities.'

'The government is discussing with development partners how to handle the crisis and how to fill the gap,' Akol said.

One African delegate went so far as to say there could be a positive aspect to the cuts. 'Now African governments must finally put their money where their mouth is,' he said.

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