AFRICA

Drug-resistant HIV has been increasing in parts of sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade, according to experts writing in the Lancet.

Studies on 26,000 untreated HIV-positive people in developing countries were reviewed by the team.

They said resistance could build up if people fail to stick to drug regimes, and because monitoring could be poor.

A UK HIV organisation said resistance was a serious problem in Africa where alternative treatments were lacking.

Resistance to AIDS drugs, a problem that has been widely feared over the last decade, is growing in parts of Africa but should not hamper the life-saving drug rollout, researchers reported on Monday.

Tiny genetic mutations that make HIV immune to key frontline drugs have been increasing in eastern and southern Africa, something that should be a clear warning to health watchdogs, they said.

"Without continued and increased national and international efforts, rising HIV drug resistance could jeopardize a decade-long trend of decreasing HIV/AIDS-related illness and death in low- and middle-income countries," they said.

This Roadmap presents a set of practical African-sourced solutions for enhancing shared responsibility and global solidarity for AIDS, TB and malaria responses in Africa on a sustainable basis by 2015. The solutions are organized around three strategic pillars: diversified financing; access to medicines; and enhanced health governance.

The Roadmap defines goals, results and roles and responsibilities to hold stakeholders accountable for the realization of these solutions between 2012 and 2015.

Up to half a million African babies die on the day they are born, and every year 1.16 million babies die in the first month of life while another one million babies are stillborn. In addition, about 250 000 women die of pregnancy-related causes every year in Africa. The majority of these deaths are preventable. However due to factors such as critical shortage of health professionals and essential materials and infrastructure, ineffective intervention programmes as well as the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, the Africa continent continues to lose millions of babies and mothers every year. Hence, there is a need to strengthen the health systems in many African countries through effective maternal and child health (MCH) intervention programmes.

For the second year in a row, an additional 1.1 million people in sub-Saharan Africa received antiretroviral therapy, reaching a total of 6.2 million people across the region in 2011. In less than a decade, access to HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa has increased more than 100-fold.

“I am impressed with the progress that Africa has achieved on AIDS, but much remains to be done,” said Dr Thomas Yayi Boni, Chairperson of African Union and President of Benin. “As chairperson of the African Union, I am working closely with African leaders and partners to deliver more sustainable and African owned responses.”

Experts say that underfunded pilot universal healthcare sites to be set up by South Africa as part of its proposed national health insurance may be doomed to fail as debate rages about how the move to more equitable healthcare will be funded.

In March, South Africa announced 10 districts across the country that will pilot universal healthcare under its proposed national health insurance (NHI).

Pilot sites have only been allocated an additional R11 million (or 1.3 million dollars) to implement the NHI, according to Di McIntyre, professor at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at South Africa’s University of Cape Town.

There is widespread consensus that providing universal, sustainable, affordable and quality health services underpins efforts to achieve equitable health outcomes. UNICEF in 2010-2011 conducted a two-phase landscape analysis, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, to investigate how health insurance and other social health protection mechanisms contribute to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). The work built on previous research examining the protection from impoverishment that health insurance provides to vulnerable groups, the potential for increasing and expanding insurance coverage, and the options for and constraints limiting the use of insurance to attain UHC.