A funding shortfall could hurt HIV-positive South African prisoners in need of antiretroviral drugs, a senior correctional services official said on Tuesday.
Subashini Moodley, chief deputy commissioner in the Department of Correctional Services told Parliament the number of prisoners requiring the anti-Aids medication was seen rising to 4 800 by March.
This would force officials to increase funding to cater for the prisoners’ requirements.
”National Treasury has informed us that we will now have to start paying for the ARV treatment … It’s a budget that we don’t have,” Moodley said, adding the medication costs the government R284 per offender each month.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest rate of HIV, the virus that causes Aids, with an estimated 500 000 people infected each year.
About 1 000 people die every day from Aids-related diseases, and this high mortality rate resonated in skyrocketing prison deaths at the turn of the millennium.
Moodley said the department paid about R1,3-million rand to provide 2 718 prisoners with antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, but this was expected to escalate to R10-million by the end of March.
A recent study, partly funded by United States President George Bush’s Presidential Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), showed a national HIV prevalence of 9,9% among prison staff and 19,8% among prisoners.
According to South Africa’s Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JIP), the total number of prisoners who died declined to 1 249 in 2007 from 1 315 in 2006.
”The decline in the number of deaths is directly linked to the distribution of ARVs among inmates and we welcome any initiative to provide ill prisoners with adequate treatment, and not only for Aids,” said Gideon Morris, director at JIP.
He said there was a strong correlation between overcrowded prisons and prison mortality rates, with an estimated 165 000 (52 000 awaiting trial) incarcerated in prisons designed to hold 114 000 in total. – Reuters