DELHI, India and KAMPALA, Uganda, April 26, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Rationing Funds, Risking Lives: World Backtracks on HIV Treatment, the new report from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), documents early warning signs resulting from the global pullback on AIDS commitment and funding: caps on the number of people enrolled in treatment programmes, more frequent drug stock outs, and national AIDS budgets falling short.

AIDS is not over. ITPC's report clearly shows that the response is being starved not over-funded. Governments, North and South, cannot afford to put the clock back and return us to the days when HIV was a death sentence, said Aditi Sharma coordinator of ITPC's report.

The effect of government budget cuts and flat lined funding from major donors like PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are already being felt in the developing world. The Fund needs US$20 billion over the next three years to help meet the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but G8 and other donors are warning that raising even US$13 billion (the lowest target which will mean a dramatic slow-down in pace of delivery) is a huge stretch.

In my home country, Uganda, for the first time since 2004, some HIV-positive men and women in need of life-saving antiretroviral treatment are being turned away because of funding cuts. Our greatest fear is that we may have to ration HIV medications for those already receiving treatment. How do you tell an HIV-positive mother that she can no longer have the drugs she needs to stay alive? ITPC's report makes it painfully clear that Uganda is not alone in facing an escalating treatment crisis, said Peter Mugyenyi of the Joint Clinical Research Centre, Uganda and author of the foreword.

Access to AIDS treatment for four million people has been the most ambitious public health achievement in history, said ITPC's Gregg Gonsalves. Worldwide thousands of doctors, nurses, legislators, and activists helped make treatment scale-up possible. Now a few power brokers and politicians who claim AIDS receives too much money seem intent on ending this remarkable effort, in effect telling millions of people: drop dead. Without treatment, this is certainly their fate.

Researchers found that the financial sustainability of AIDS treatment programmes is in question, effectively ending any hope of meeting the goal of universal access to HIV treatment or the MDGs.

- India: access to second-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) is severely limited because of strict eligibility criteria for the government programme and high cost in the private sector. - Kenya: donor cutbacks and a lack of adequate domestic funds will cause the financing gap for treatment to further widen this year. - Latvia: HIV treatment costs are shockingly high compared to other middle-income countries, and the government is imposing restrictions on the number of patients provided with free ARVs. - Malawi: the health care system suffers a severe shortage of qualified doctors and nurses and most patients entering hospitals are unaware of their HIV status. - Swaziland: tuberculosis is the leading killer of people living with HIV, yet effective integration of TB and HIV treatment is lacking. - Venezuela: the government is working from an outdated national AIDS plan and lacks reliable data on the number of people living with HIV or those in need of treatment.

The report, the 8th in the Missing the Target series, is published by International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC). Full report available at http://www.itpcglobal.org

SOURCE: ITPC

CONTACT: Kay Marshall, New York, +1-347-249-6375, kaymarshall@mac.com; orAditi Sharma, Delhi, +91-991-0046-560, aditi.campaigns@gmail.com, both forITPC