ART Program expansion in Uganda and Financial Sustainability

HIV/AIDS prevalence rates have continued to rise despite numerous strategies to combat this pandemic. Globally, there are an estimated 39.4 million people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). About 95% of these are in developing countries of which 70% are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) killed about 3.1 million people in 2004 alone and there were an estimated 5 million new HIV infections (UNAIDS, 2004). SSA has an estimated 25.4 million people who are HIV positive. In this region alone, AIDS killed approximately 2.3 million people in 2004 while 3.1 million were newly infected with HIV (UNAIDS, 2004). The era of Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has brought hope for the millions of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). In SSA about 4 million people are in need of ART and only about 50% are currently accessing this treatment hence the need for scaling up ART programs in SSA countries. However, this requires the mobilization of financial resources that most SSA countries do not have (Thompson RJ, et al, 1990). With average per capita GDP of US$ 330, Uganda faces a challenge of financially sustaining the HIV and ART programmes.