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New HIV treatment figures for patients
Tamar Kahn, Science and Health Editor - Business Day
2006-12-01
CAPE TOWN - The health department moved this weekend to correct figures it released last week on the number of HIV patients receiving AIDS drugs at state facilities, saying it had accidentally doubled the number of children on treatment.
Government has tried to improve its communication efforts on HIV/AIDS treatment following widespread criticism from political parties and civil society groups, all of which said government was not doing enough to roll out antiretrovirals drugs.
The 235378 figure announced on Tuesday was immediately queried by the Southern African HIV Clinicians' Society, which said the number was a suspiciously large jump on the 178635 on treatment at the end of June.
Health department spokesman Sibane Mngadi said the total number of people on treatment at the end of September was 213828, and 21550 of these were children.
This increase represents an average of more than 11000 patients being put on treatment every month, making the programme the fastest growing antiretroviral treatment programme in the world, he said.
The growth is largely attributed to an increase in the number of facilities providing antiretroviral treatment, up from 251 in June to 273 in September.
Mngadi also provided a provincial breakdown of the treatment programme, showing wide disparities in government's progress in the different regions.
The province with the greatest number of HIV patients in treatment is KwaZulu-Natal (59404), followed by Gauteng (55580), Eastern Cape (24920), Northern Cape (21589) and Western Cape (21270).
Smaller patient groups were receiving antiretroviral treatment in Limpopo (11660), Mpumalanga (7989), Free State (6950) and North West (4476).
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