Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 3/7/2006

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CONTENT:

1 - ETHIOPIA: Gov't scales up antiretroviral roll-out

1 - ETHIOPIA: Gov't scales up antiretroviral roll-out

NAIROBI, 6 March (PLUSNEWS) - The Ethiopian Ministry of Health has announced

that it will provide free antiretroviral therapy (ART) and treatment of

opportunistic infections for 58,000 HIV-positive people until the beginning of

July.

The ministry said on Friday that some 23,000 people had already benefited from

free ART provision since January 2005. At least 1.5 million people in Ethiopia

are currently living with the HI virus, according to UN estimates.

" The number of beneficiaries [of ART] will reach 58,000 people at the end of the

current Ethiopian budget year, " Ahmed Imano, press officer at the ministry, told

the state-owned Ethiopian News Agency.

Ahmed said some 245,000 people across the country were in need of ART, and added

that the government planned to provide the treatment to 100,000 patients by

December 2006, increasing that number to 200,000 by August 2008.

The ministry noted that since the beginning of the year, 126 hospitals had been

equipped with Voluntary HIV/AIDS Counselling and Testing and services for the

Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of the virus.

Around half of Ethiopia's 77 million people have no access to health facilities,

according to government and UN figures. The Horn of Africa country has an HIV

prevalence rate of 4.4 percent, and at least 900,000 people have died from the

pandemic since 1986.

Ethiopia is one of 15 countries targeted by US President W Bush's US $15

billion-emergency plan for HIV/AIDS relief. The US spent $43 million in the

country in 2004 on anti-AIDS activities, and a further $61 million was earmarked

for 2005, half of which was to be used to purchase antiretroviral drugs.

The Ethiopian government estimates that it needs $19 billion to overcome

HIV/AIDS in the next decade.

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