Dr Min Thwe is absolutely correct when he says that “The 3DF alone is not enough to achieve nationwide coverage for our programs”. His comment would have carried more weight if he had announced at the same time an increase in the governmental budget for HIV.
Will no one from any UN agency or any NGO share any documents from this meeting with the [him] moderator? Your identity will not be revealed.
[him] moderator
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HIV rate down but funding issues loom
Phyu Lin Wai
Myanmar Times
AN annual review meeting of the National AIDS Program (NAP) earlier this month highlighted a lack of funding as the main challenge in the fight to prevent HIV/AIDS and provide care for patients with the disease in Myanmar.
Dr Min Thwe, the manager of the NAP under the Department of Health, said the program was now facing funding difficulties that could reduce the effectiveness of current efforts to deal with the disease.
“Our people have the skills and knowledge to prevent the disease but they need more funding,” he said.
He said that only 3 million condoms have been distributed so far this year under the program, compared with 13 million in 2006. Also last year partner organisations were able to hand out 36 million condoms to communities free of charge.
Dr Min Thwe was speaking to The Myanmar Times on the sidelines of the meeting to review the NAP’s activities in 2007, which was held at Sedona Hotel in Yangon from October 30 to November 2.
The meeting was jointly organised by the Department of Health, World Health Organisation (WHO), Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Participants included high-level NAP officials, UN and NGO representatives and people infected with HIV.
Dr Min Thwe said one objective of the meeting was to discuss ways to implement a township-based prevention approach in collaboration with partner organisations, for which much of the funding will be provided by the Three Diseases Fund (3DF).
“The 3DF will provide funding for blood tests, methadone substitution therapy and disease surveillance for the NAP but not for other prevention efforts,” he said.
The 3DF, established in October 2006, has pledged US$100 million to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Myanmar over five years, with $21 million earmarked for use by 26 implementing partners for one-year periods starting from May and September this year.
The NAP had previously been funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which ended its support in August 2005, and the Fund for HIV/AIDS in Myanmar, which was established in 2003 and ended its work last March.
Dr Min Thwe said the gap between funding and the amount necessary to conduct HIV/AIDS prevention activities has grown precipitously for the NAP and partner organisations since last year.
“And the gap will be much bigger in 2008,” he said.
He said that according to NAP and UN estimates, about $50 million would be required to conduct planned activities in 2008 but so far the NAP and its partners had only received about $25 million from donors.
“The 3DF alone is not enough to achieve nationwide coverage for our programs,” he said.
Dr Min Thwe said current NAP programs have been quite successful in preventing HIV/AIDS but depended on sufficient funding.
“Our efforts to prevent disease transmission through sexual contact and injecting drug use have become very efficient compared with past years,” he said.
He said that although few efforts had been made to prevent HIV among injecting drug users in the past, in 2006 NAP partners had exchanged more than 1.8 million used needles for new ones, had reached more than 10,000 drug users with its disease prevention efforts, and had opened more drop-in centres.
Dr Min Thwe said the NAP had also provided training courses and medicines for basic health staff in more than 300 townships to give treatment to patients with sexual transmitted diseases (STDs).
“We also distributed national-standard guidelines to NGOs to provide effective treatment,” he said.
“More NGOs are now tackling STDs and more people are aware of such diseases but we’re still a long way from meeting the needs of the country in this area,” he said.
The good news, he said, was that the prevalence of HIV in the population has dropped from 0.94 percent in 2000 to 0.67pc this year, based on a new estimation method used at a regional HIV meeting held in Bangkok last June.
The new figures were calculated by officials from WHO, UNAIDS and the Ministry of Health.
According to previous estimates, the HIV rate decreased from 1.5pc in 2000 to 1.3pc in 2005.
“According to the old calculations there were about 338,911 people living with HIV/AIDS in Myanmar in 2004 but the new estimates put the figure at about 240,000,” Dr Min Thwe said.
He said the infrastructure was already in place for the NAP to provide antiretroviral treatment (ART) to more patients but, again, sufficient funding was needed.
“This year about 67,000 HIV-infected people required ART but we had only been able to provide it for about 6700 – nearly 1000 by the NAP and more than 5000 by NGOs,” he said, adding that although this constituted only 10pc coverage it was still higher than the 4pc of past years.
Dr Min Thwe said the increasing involvement of local communities in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment was a good sign because it was important in developing a viable system of home-based care.
http://mmtimes.com/no392/n005.htm
