Expanded health coverage plan launched

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Tuesday announced a massive expansion of health coverage for the 35 million Ethiopians who do not have access to hospitals and clinics. Meles said the government was dramatically increasing the number clinics and hospitals in the country as part of the drive against HIV that has infected 1.5 million people. Speaking at an international conference in Addis Ababa, to discuss how to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic, he said the government planned to set up one health centre for every 25,000 people in all rural areas within three years. The health centres would provide "counselling, diagnosis and treatment," Meles said. He added they would also try and encourage behavioural change. "The HIV/AIDS pandemic has been and continues to be a major threat to our viability as a nation," the prime minister said. "Even if we manage to control the spread of the disease now and reverse it, the result of the damage already caused will continue to have major impacts on all aspects of our lives as a society." Around half of Ethiopia’s 71 million people do not have access to health facillities, according to government and UN figures and 900,000 people have died from AIDS. The health ministry expected the number of deaths from AIDS-related causes to have doubled by 2008. No official funding figures were announced on boosting health sector coverage but the government has said it needs US $19 billion to overcome HIV/AIDS in the next decade. Meles warned that while the epidemic was levelling off in urban areas it was on the increase in rural villages. More than 85 percent of the population live in rural areas. His comments came at a US-organised annual conference on President George W. Bush's $15 billion emergency plan for AIDS relief. Ethiopia – which has the fifth highest number of people living with HIV in the world - is one of 15 countries being targeted under the emergency plan. Earlier Ambassador Randall Tobias, the US Global AIDS Coordinator told the conference that the US was spending double the rest of the world in fighting HIV/AIDS. "The emergency plan is the largest international health initiative any nation has ever directed at a single disease," he added. According to the Ethiopian health authorities an estimated 12.6 percent of people in urban areas are HIV-positive while in rural settings it is 2.6 percent. The national prevalence rate is 4.4 percent. The US spent $43 million in Ethiopia in 2004 on anti-AIDS activities. A further $61 million is earmarked for this year – half of which will be used to buy antiretroviral drugs. Experts estimate that more than $100 million a year was now being channelled through the government into the fight against HIV/AIDS. Antiretroviral drugs are being given to patients at 20 hospitals around the country. Distribution would also take place at 30 health centres in the country. That is expected to be expanded to over 100 by 2008.