§ Mr. Nigel JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of(a) the quality of HIV treatment available in Zambia and (b) the extent to which treatment has improved in recent years; and how many people have died from HIV/AIDS in Zambia in each of the last five years. [161795]
§ Hilary BennTreatment of HIV is understood to mean treatment of AIDS retroviral infection, through Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART), as well as treatment of the opportunistic infections it causes.
The number of people who have died of AIDS in Zambia in the last five years is not known; because of stigma and limited diagnostic capacity, AIDS is often not stated or acknowledged as a cause of death. However, from official Government of Zambia figures it is estimated that an average of 100,000 people have died from AIDS in the last five years.
ART was provided by provincial hospitals in Zambia for the first time in 2003. Over 1,000 clients are accessing this treatment at present. The quality of ART has yet to be assessed. However, while the health sector is under funded (with a resource gap of £94 million per year, or 50 per cent. of the health funding needed), and numbers of health workers are falling (at an estimated 10 per cent. per year) due to emigration and health problems, the quality of AIDS treatment is likely to remain poor.
Part of DFID's £20 million HIV/AIDS programme in Zambia provides monitoring and evaluation consultancy services in support of monitoring treatment quality. A further £20 million programme is supporting the strengthening of Zambia's health systems and financing the delivery of public health services, including to people living with HIV/AIDS and those affected by associated opportunistic infections.
Recent efforts to direct limited resources to where they are most needed have resulted in modest improvements. For the first time in many years, and with DFID's support, Zambia had sufficient drugs in 2003 to treat the range of common diseases which afflict poor people, 197W including opportunistic infections due to AIDS. Disease control measures have also improved. For example, the cure rate for TB, a common AIDS opportunistic infection, improved from 50 per cent. to 55 per cent. between 2000 and 2003.