Costs of Antiretroviral Drugs Dramatically Increase in US

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Costs of Antiretroviral Drugs Dramatically Increase in US

Reuters Health Information Services (10/12/99)

According to a study led by Dr. Abid Rahman with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the costs of AIDS treatment rose 434 percent for the VA between 1992 and 1998. At the Third International Conference on Healthcare Resource Allocation for HIV/AIDS and Other Life-Threatening Illnesses in Austria, Dr. Rahman noted that the number of antiretroviral drug prescriptions the VA system filled between 1992 and 1998 soared 546 percent. In addition, the AIDS/HIV Drug Utilization study found that whereas antiretroviral drugs represented nearly half of overall pharmacy costs at the beginning of the study, that figure rose to 78 percent by 1998.

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