THE INDEPENDENT– Thousands of patients who are becoming clinically eligible for anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in Uganda risk early death unless an informal ban on enrollment of new patients by the ART treatment centres countrywide is lifted.
Several organisations caring for people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda have sounded alarm bells regarding their members who are being turned away at anti-retroviral treatment centres even when their CD4 counts (which determine patient immunity levels) show that they are due for treatment.
An evening television news report on NTV Uganda on June 16 June, 2010 highlights the plight of hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS who are stranded at treatment centres which have declined to enroll them on treatment citing severe funding dilemmas for the lifelong ART drugs.
For people with HIV/AIDS, anti-retroviral treatment is the main hope of prolonging life. Anti retroviral drugs (ARVs) inhibit the ability of the HIV to multiply in the body.
Dr Peter Mugyenyi, the Executive Director of the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC), one of the leading national providers of HIV/AIDS care and treatment in Uganda, acknowledges the problem.
“In Uganda, lower- than- anticipated funding support from PEPFAR and other donor entities in the past couple of years has forced many facilities to turn away new HIV-positive patients seeking ART,’’ Dr Mugyenyi says in a foreword he wrote for the latest 2010 report of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) entitled Rationing Funds, Risking Lives: World Backtracks on HIV Treatment.
Dr Deus Lukoye, the Kampala City Council HIV/AIDS Focal Person, has confirmed to this reporter that many ART sites in Kampala are turning away new patients due to donor funding deficits.
Read full article about Thousands at Risk with HIV.
© COPYRIGHT THE INDEPENDENT, 2010
