Actions to promote Paediatric Anti-Retroviral Treatment:
A challenge for developing countries’ basic health services

An unreasonable choice in the health sector? Considerations based on the cases of Uganda and Ethiopia

Vincenzo Racalbuto, Health Expert, Italian Cooperation HQ

Marina Madeo, HIV/AIDS Consultant, Italian Cooperation, Etiopia

Giuseppe Braghieri, Health Expert, Italian Cooperation, Uganda

ABSTRACT

This report intends to analyse the issues related to the current implementation of ART (AntiRetroviral Treatment), in particular paediatric ART, in Sub-Saharan African Countries, a region struggling in the fight against HIV/AIDS and in the difficult way toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015.
This phase of development is crucial for these countries, in their public health strategies, in contexts where the most frequent causes of mortality are mainly diseases that in the northern countries have been eradicated.

The financial support from the international community to ART has focused on the health of the population in the developing world but, it has also created some distortions which need to be carefully evaluated.
Furthermore this financial support is not driven by prioritisation based on public health criteria but, rather bypolitical and emotional reasons related to human rights.

The dimension of the HIV/AIDS epidemic certainly cannot be overlooked. According to the UNAIDS epidemiological data at the end of 2005 there were 2.3 million children under 15 years of age living with HIV, with almost 2 million HIV+ children living in Sub-Saharan Africa (TABLE 1).
About 20 years after the WHO officially acknowledged the AIDS pandemic, and after 15 years of disorientation, with the rich countries willing to fund “something” to cope with HIV/AIDS in the southern world, the availability of low cost ARV (AntiRetroViral) drugs has fostered a bulk of financial and technical support, unprecedented in the history of international cooperation and humanitarian relief.

TABELLA 1