On Air Highlights

HIV crisis – Urgent action needed to save lives in Burma

22 February 2012

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The medical humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that thousands of lives are at risk in Burma, unless international funding is forthcoming.MSF is the largest provider of HIV treatment in Burma.

In a new report, it says that 85-thousand people are in urgent need of anti-retroviral therapy, but can’t get the drugs, as the Global Fund has cancelled the next round of funding, as donor nations are not honouring pledges.

And of the over nine-thousand people newly infected with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, only 300 are getting treatment.

Peter Paul de Groote is MSF’s head of mission in Burma, he spoke to after launching the report in Bangkok.

Asia Pacific

Presenter: Sen Lam

Speaker: Peter Paul de Groote, head of mission, Burma, Medecins Sans Frontieres

 

DE GROOTE: We have about 120-thousand people who’re in need of treatment, as of today, according to the standards of the World Health Organisation. Unfortunately, only around 40-thousand people are receiving treatment. So with the cancellation of the funding by the Global Fund, of round eleven, that was supposed to come on board this year, another 46-thousand-500 people would have received treatment, that now will not receive treatment. It’s a similar situation for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, where we have 9,300 cases a year, and only about 300 cases so far, have received treatment. So, in both diseases, the treatment gap is unacceptably high.

 

LAM: So what figure are we looking at here. How much money was expected from ‘Round 11′ to tackle HIV, TB and malaria in Burma itself?

 

DE GROOTE: Ya, that’s a very difficult one to answer because the moment the round was cancelled, we were still in the budget cycle of the negotiations between those organisations, to see how much it was. So any figure I give would probably give the wrong indication. What we can say is that the average treatment for HIV is around US$560 per patient per year.

 

LAM: As your report indicated, funding now will not only prove more effective in the long run in saving lives, but will also work out to be cheaper, but if nations are not forthcoming with the money, what can the Global Fund do, given the dire current financial climate?

 

DE GROOTE: The Global Fund cannot do alot if there’s no money coming in, because the Global Fund itself is not a donor. It’s the donor countries that have been making clear statements, like in the UN conference of last June, that they want to have fifteen million people on treatment by 2015, so those statements should go hand in hand with the money that is needed to do that. That money can go to institutions like the Global Fund, then to be disbursed to the countries where it’s needed most. We think that donors and donor countries should step up their funding for HIV aids and multi-drug resistant TB, to the Global Fund, or bilateral, to Myanmar, because the unacceptably high treatment gap for both diseases, and if that’s done, many lives will be saved, not only now, but also in the long run.

 

LAM: Can you tell us also, a little bit about some of the worst-hit communities in Burma, threatened by this health crisis?

 

DE GROOTE: I think it’s throughout the country. HIV of course, you have the most at-risk groups, but the transformation is taking place throughout the population, so everyone could be at risk, especially with multi-drug resistant TB, you could be perfectly healthy, but it’s airborne transmission, so everyone is at risk. If there’s no funding forthcoming at the moment, it will mean that many people who should receive treatment will not, and they will die. What we are confronted with at the moment, is to enrol new patients (but) when they’re at death’s door, when they’re really sick, and very complex to treat, with funding coming in, we can treat them at an earlier stage, which means that they’re healthier and in the long run, means less cost for the total treatment.

 

LAM: And also, particularly with HIV, the earlier the intervention, the better chance the patient gets, ya?

 

DE GROOTE: The better chance the patient gets and also the transmission rates will reduce, because it is scientifically proven that someone who receives anti-retroviral treatments, the chances of transmitting the disease will reduce by 96 percent. I think the public health system (of Burma) still has a long way to go, but at the moment, there’re some positive indications that more money will be allocated within the health budget, by the government, so there’re ongoing negotiations at the moment, and we hope that the trend will continue in the future. We also understand that it will take time to build up the health sector and ourselves, but also other actors are more than willing to cooperate to make that work, so that there is enough capacity in the country to treat these diseases.

 

LAM: Burma of course, is a poor country, but can the Burmese authorities do more to help, perhaps by granting greater ease of access?

 

DE GROOTE: At the moment, we have access to the places that we would like to be most of all, because we are at capacity, we have already 23-thousand people on treatments. We do think however, it would be useful, if for example, import restrictions are eased, so that we all can work in a slightly easier way. But the real point at the moment is not so much the limitations we think for treating patients, it’s really no funding, so it’s not even a discussion.

 

LAM: How is MSF operating at the moment, in Burma, in trying to help people with HIV AIDS and also, with TB?

 

DE GROOTE: We have our own clinics, where we treat people for HIV AIDS and as I mentiioned, we have about 23-thousand people at the moment on treatment, out of an estimated 40-thousand. We also are working together with the ministry of Health, to help build the capacity in the country, to increase, to be able to enrol more patients. So if you look at the situation at the moment, we think there is a clear acknowledgement of the crisis, there is a willingness to do something about it, we think there’s an infrastructure to put more people on treatment. What is really lacking is the funding from the international community, to make this work.