Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Monday December 09, 2002
Kasonde said in a statement Zambia needed to raise the money from foreign donors and local sources to provide free antiretroviral drugs and expand existing programs aimed at reducing infection and caring for AIDS orphans.
Zambia's health minister said earlier in the year that the country needed $560 million per year to fight the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, roughly half of its national budget.
Financial analysts said Kasonde's more conservative figures might reflect a more realistic assessment of the country's fund-raising ability.
"HIV/AIDS has become one of the major causes of illness and death among the young and middle-aged adults, depriving households and society of critical human resource base," Kasonde's statement said.
Government data show that one in every five Zambians has HIV, which causes AIDS, or has a full-blown case of AIDS.
The pandemic has killed more than 650,000 Zambians since the first case was recorded 18 years ago. The government estimates 200 Zambians die of AIDS every day, while another 500 people are infected.
Most of Zambia's 11 million people live far below the World Bank poverty threshold of $1 per day and cannot afford AIDS drugs, which cost $200 to $1,000 per month.
Zambia said in July that it had received $19.8 million from the UN Global Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria--the three top killers in the country--but that it had sought nearly $93 million from the fund.
AIDS has killed more than 20 million people and infected 40 million more, most of them in Africa.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has estimated the cost of fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis at $10 billion.
The World Bank committed $1 billion to fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa in October.
Kasonde's estimate was issued as the government released a new 3-year development plan.
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