The Western Cape health department expects to complete within the next two months an estimate of the cost of providing antiretroviral treatment to children in the province.
Health MEC Piet Meyer said in a statement issued on Wednesday that this was part of a wider assessment of ARV treatment costs in the province.
Nothing had been allocated specifically for triple therapy treatment in the current budget, but his department would review its figures in the light of a possible Cabinet decision on the recommendations of the coming national health department and Treasury task team on ARV funding.
Deputy provincial director-general of health Dr Fareed Abdullah, who is in charge of the Western Cape’s Aids programme, said that in order to do the costing exercise, the department had to estimate the number of children who would need the drugs over the next few years, which was in itself an ”intricate projection to make”.
”In addition to that, as children will be put on treatment they will survive longer, also the costs will be cumulative, so we’re trying to establish the cumulative cost.
”In addition we are looking at whether it’s feasible to provide [ARVs] to children if we are not providing them to their mothers or caregivers.”
The department was also looking at how and at which facilities the service might be delivered.
”The department is awaiting the national task team report which we think will inform our approach to the use of ARVs in children,” he said.
The idea of offering the drugs to children in the province was not a new one and had been expressed repeatedly by the department over the past two years.
”We are committed to this intervention. We’ve said before that ARV treatment must be part of the arsenal in the fight against Aids,” he said.
This had already led to a pilot project between the department, clinicians and a donor agency. Forty children were currently on treatment in Khayelitsha, 80 at
Groote Schuur Hospital and the same number at Tygerberg.
The Western Cape already has a province-wide ARV mother-to-child transmission prevention programme. – Sapa