/CORRECTION/HEALTH-ARGENTINA: HIV/AIDS Troubles Worsen with Economic Crisis

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 12 2002 (IPS) - Argentines with HIV/AIDS are on the alert because the supply of medications for treating their disease could be completely cut off in July as a result of the economic and social crisis thrashing this South American nation.

There have been interruptions in drug supplies in the past, but this time the culprit would be the postponement of a 60-million-dollar disbursement that the World Bank pledged to provide help for Argentines with HIV/AIDS for the rest of the year.

The economic crisis, unemployment, shortages of state resources to ensure the continuity of treatment and the delay in agreements with multilateral credit organisations have created a lethal combination for the people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, the precursor to AIDS).

The antiretroviral treatment, which entails several medications, has proved effective in slowing the development of the virus. But this medical “cocktail” must be administered on a continuous and regular basis, because interruptions in treatment give the virus time to develop resistance to the drugs.

“The most serious problem continues to be the lack of access to medications, but now we also have to deal with the problem that many do not have money to buy food or to make the trip to downtown Buenos Aires to protest the situation,” Marcela Alsina, leader of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, told IPS.

“We work with women who have infant children but cannot nurse them for fear of infecting them with HIV. And they don’t have enough money to buy infant formula. One of the women is ill, alone, unemployed and her children are also ill. And worse, her husband is in prison,” Alsina said.

An estimated 130,000 people in Argentina are HIV positive and more than 20,000 have developed full-blown AIDS. Currently, there are three men with the disease for every woman. Twelve years ago, the ratio was 12 to one.

The Network that Alsina leads, consisting only of people with HIV/AIDS, has chapters in nearly all of Argentina’s two dozen provinces. Alsina is the representative of the largest chapter, which covers the entire province of Buenos Aires and the outskirts of the capital.

Non-governmental organisations that work with HIV/AIDS patients have repeatedly demanded continuity in the supply of medications in order to prevent the risk of interruption of treatment.

But the tone of their demands took on a note of desperation in December, when Argentina’s economic and social crisis exploded.

Towards the end of 2001, the Fundación Desida filed five to 15 petitions per month for special legal protection for people who were not provided with the necessary drugs to treat the disease. Such lawsuits have multiplied dramatically since then, the organisation’s psychologist, Noemí Perelman, told IPS.

Fundación Desida is preparing to file a special legal petition with the justice authorities to seek guarantees of immediate distribution of medications to all HIV/AIDS patients if the promised World Bank assistance does not arrive, Perelman said.

The release of the 60 million dollars the World Bank promised has been postponed until July, leading many to believe that the institution is waiting for the Eduardo Duhalde government to sign a financial aid agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF) before it will disburse the money.

The government temporarily resolved the problems in medication distribution that people with HIV/AIDS confronted earlier this year, Kurt Frieder, director of the Fundación Huésped, told IPS.

But Frieder, whose organisation specialises in disseminating information about HIV/AIDS, warned that the shortage of medications could be total in July if foreign aid is not renewed.

“The Health Ministry was able to guarantee a portion of the treatments, but the doses were minimal and some patients chose not to make the effort to obtain them since they only lasted a week,” he said.

“This is very serious for someone who has already initiated treatment, because the virus becomes increasingly resistant if therapy is halted,” Frieder stated.

The problem deepened at the same pace as the national crisis. Several health enterprises, whether private sector or run by the trade unions, were left without sufficient medical supplies, forcing many patients to turn to the public hospitals.

Furthermore, rising unemployment means thousands of people are left without medical insurance coverage.

When the hospitals order 3,000 doses, the government health authorities send 1,000, complained Alsina.

“That means we have medications for four or five days, and when they run out, the procession to the Health Ministry begins again to obtain only a small portion of what is needed,” she added.

“The situation worsened a great deal since last year. When we complained then, we would obtain enough doses for one or two months,” she said.

In 2001, when the economic crisis had not yet reached December’s explosive levels, people with HIV/AIDS staged loud protests in downtown Buenos Aires.

“But then we had to call off the protests that we regularly held in front of the Health Minister because nobody had enough money for bus fare to get there,” said the activist.

“If the patients are arriving at the doctor appointments on bicycle, how can we expect them to attend a protest or appear in court to file a lawsuit?”

Fabián Salguero, another Network coordinator, told IPS that his health insurance company has not provided the HIV/AIDS medications he needs, even though it is required by law to do so.

Salguero filed a petition for legal protection, and as a result he was included on the list of people to be provided with the drugs, but an insurance official – in Salguero’s presence – crossed another patient’s name off the list of recipients when he added Salguero’s name.

“One problem is that the law forces the state to ensure supplies of medications, but not the transportation to pick it up, or food or clothing for the patient’s family,” said Frieder.

The Network delegates in Buenos Aires province are meeting this month to organise their next legal move, in case the World Bank assistance does not arrive in July.

In drawing up the strategy, they have to avoid requiring too much effort from those in the group whose health is already deteriorating, are unemployed and lack money for adequate food.

Fundación Huésped proposed that the government could give people with HIV/AIDS a free pass for public transportation, but the authorities have not yet taken a decision on the matter.

In order to combine trips outside the home, “we hold our meetings on the same days that the infectious diseases specialist is attending patients at the hospital because we know that people can’t get around very easily,” said Alsina.

The Network coordinator, 36, works at a law office. She was infected with HIV 15 years ago. Since then, she has followed a series of treatments that have allowed her to keep the virus under control in the last few years. But recent months have been “a nightmare.”

“I had to interrupt treatment for 15 days because there were no drugs available. They would gave me a handful of pills when I asked for them, but there were no tests to measure the viral burden, which are essential for the infectologist to control the body’s reaction to the medicine,” Alsina said.