‘Uganda cannot afford treatment for AIDS patient’

‘Uganda cannot afford treatment for AIDS patient’  Not being able to afford $4 billion treatment to about 350,000 AIDS patients in the country, Uganda showed helplessness in offering lifetime treatment to AIDS patients, the Uganda Aids Commission said.

The Kampala-based agency said, treatment being costly and the increasing numbers of infected children and adult are making `target of achieving universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment' impossible to attain in the medium term.

Over a lifetime, an average of $11,500 worth of antiretroviral medicines will be needed for every patient.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS' Web site about 940,000 people are living with HIV in Uganda and 130,000 people are annually infected with the virus, the Ugandan Population Secretariat had informed.