UGANDA: HIV/AIDS drugs for workers infected on duty

Uganda on Thursday said healthcare workers who contracted the HI virus while on duty would get free drug therapy. Director of the Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV/AIDS Control Programme, Elizabeth Madraa, told the UN news service Plusnews the drugs would be provided under the Uganda Multi-sectoral AIDS Project (MAP) and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "These drugs were previously only available in the private sector, but will be made available to all healthcare providers once antiretroviral policy documents have been drafted by government," Madraa said. Madraa said recent government negotiations with pharmaceutical companies had further reduced the price for a month's course of HIV/AIDS drugs from about US $38 to about US $12. "I cannot commit myself on dates for the free treatment and think it is unfortunate that treatment can only begin once the policy has been drafted, but this document is needed as a guideline for the antiretroviral treatment of people infected by HIV," Madraa told Plusnews.