This is quite an alarming story. But unclear. It says the NLD cares for people with HIV but does not say whether the Waibagi governmental hospital or the AZG (MSF Holland) clinic ran out of stock.
********************************
ARV Treatment Denied New HIV/AIDS Patients in Rangoon
Shah Paung
Irrawaddy
9 January 2007
Hospitals and clinics in Rangoon treating HIV/AIDS sufferers have stopped providing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for new patients, saying stocks have been exhausted, according to a member of the opposition National League for Democracy concerned with the welfare of victims of the disease.
The NLD is currently caring for more than 300 HIV/AIDS sufferers, who are receiving ARV treatment. Hospitals and clinics treating them had denied ARV drugs to more than 40 others who had recently fallen ill, said the NLD’s Phyu Phyu Thin.
Phyu Phyu Thin charged that HIV/AIDS sufferers were dying while waiting for ARV treatment. Five of the patients cared for by the NLD had died since stocks of ARV drugs ran out at the end of December, she said.
ARV treatment is offered in Rangoon by the AZG clinic of the Dutch branch of the French-based Médecins sans Frontières and the Rangoon Infectious Diseases Hospital [Wai Bar Gi].
The World Health Organization reported last month that Burma has 339,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers. Japan pledged last November to donate US $2.65 million to Unicef to help fight HIV/AIDS and malaria in Burma, while the Norwegian government is to contribute $819,948 towards combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=6560&print=yes&c=e
