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Study paints grim AIDS picture for SA
LONDON – A million people in South Africa will die of AIDS-related diseases between now and 2010, a US study has forecast.
“Even the fastest rate of treatment scale up will be unable to prevent the deaths,” a southern Africa Aids conference held in Kigali, Rwanda, was told, the London-based aidsmap (SUBS: CORRECT) organisation reports.
Even the best-case scenario -- a rapid scale-up to improve the availability of antiretroviral drugs to reach 90-100 percent of those in need, with treatment eligibility determined by CD4 cell count --indicated 1.16 million deaths.
The worst case scenario -- no growth in the rate of new treatment, and no use of CD4 cell counting, but reliance on symptoms to determine treatment eligibility -- forecast 2.19 million deaths.
The study was done by Rochelle Walensky of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Mariam Fofana of Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston.
It modelled four different rates of treatment expansion -- one based on antiretroviral drugs reaching 80 percent of those needing them.
“It’s very sobering that even if you get the most rapid scale-up, South Africa will still face more than one million deaths by 2010,” said the head of the World Health Organisation’s HIV department, Kevin de Cock.
Meanwhile, South African Aids programmes were failing to reach many children who are at risk, an audit of child-deaths at four Durban hospitals had shown, aidsmap reported.
Dr Videsh Naidoo of King Edward VIII Hospital had told a conference in Durban that for three quarters of the dead children, there was no information in hospital records to indicate whether they or their mothers had been provided with PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission services).
Only a small minority of the children or mothers who showed clear evidence of advanced HIV infection had received antiretroviral drugs.
“This serves as a reality check on the state of health care for our children,” said Naidoo.
“A radical and innovative strategy is needed to improve the access of children and their parents to HIV programmes.” –Sapa
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