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Concern over drop in HIV funding

A DECREASE in HIV/Aids funding by international donors would result in unnecessary deaths, Doctors Without Borders said yesterday .

A DECREASE in HIV/Aids funding by international donors would result in unnecessary deaths, Doctors Without Borders said yesterday .

"International donors are flatlining and direct funds for Aids treatment is being affected," the organisation's health policy analyst Mit Phillips said in Johannesburg.

"The supply system is fragile. There are not many candidates to help out."

He said US President Barack Obama's emergency plan for Aids relief reduced its budget for antiretroviral treatment in 2009 and 2010.

It also introduced a freeze on its overall HIV-Aids budget.

Other donors, such as UNITAID and the World Bank, had also announced plans to reduce their funding for ARV drugs in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This meant that the global fund, which is the largest funding institution in the fight against HIV-Aids, faced a major funding shortfall.

"If there is reduced funding, it means more people will die and we will have more orphans," Phillips said. - Sapa

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