Government recognizes that the current HIV patient treatment is delayed
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02.03.2013

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The Ministry of Health (MoH) intends to require additional funding from Government, so that HIV-infected people could get state-funded treatment when their CD4 cell count falls below 350 cells, as required by international recommendations, rather than 200 cells, as is currently the case.
As stated in the Cabinet of Ministers reply letter to Parliamentary Subcommittee on public health, in which it called on the Cabinet of Ministers to implement international recommendations early, to April 1 this year MoH will prepare a report to the Cabinet of Ministers “On the financial situation of the health sector”, which will also include the request.
MoH and Government recognizes that the current HIV patient treatment is delayed, because for a lot of HIV infected patients the disease has reached the stage of AIDS, which requires additional financial resources for treatment, as third-line drugs are needed for the treatment of multidrug resistance, the cost of which is significantly higher.
As reported, Latvia is the only country in the European Union (EU), where HIV-infected people receive antiretroviral therapy when their CD4 cell count falls below 200 cells, and not 350 cells, as required by the WHO recommendations.
According to the Disease Prevention and Control Centre data, Latvia is in 2nd place for new HIV infection cases and 1st for the number of AIDS patients in the EU.
Statistics show that of the total HIV-infected people in the Latvia, 21% has reached the stage of AIDS. Meanwhile, in Estonia morbidity rate for HIV is much higher and there have been about 9000 infected people altogether in country, but only 4% have reached the stage of AIDS. In Lithuania from 1700 patients – 9% have reached the stage of AIDS.
The MoH expects that Latvia will return to WHO guidelines treating HIV since 1 January, 2014.