[pronut-hiv] TANZANIA: Free food programme to complement free ARVs

["ProNut-HIV" <pronut-hiv@healthnet.org>]

TANZANIA: Free food programme to complement free ARVs

DAR ES SALAAM, 8 August (PLUSNEWS) - The treatment and care of
HIV-positive Tanzanians, more than half of whom live below the poverty
line, must go well beyond merely providing life-prolonging medication if
it is to be successful.

"Most patients are poor. The medicines become irritants when they react
with the walls of the stomach, exacerbating the side effects of the
drugs. Without money to buy food, they are forced to literally feed on
the drugs," said Monica Joseph, an HIV/AIDS counsellor and nurse at the
Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam.

Most HIV/AIDS patients lived in rural areas and urban slums, and being
able to afford enough food was a problem. "It is an emerging challenge
that health-givers must contend with. Some patients withdraw from the
programme after developing side effects, most of which are related to
nutritional factors." 

According to Herman Lupogo, director-general of the Tanzania Commission
for AIDS (TACAIDS), "ARVs must be integrated into other national health
and food security programmes. ARVs alone cannot boost the patient's
immunity; provision of nutritious food must go hand in hand with the
distribution of free ARVs, or else AIDS will remain a major health
problem."

The government has acknowledged these concerns by announcing a
programme to provide free food for HIV/AIDS patients. Although details
of the scheme are yet to be made public, it has received strong
political backing. 

However, Joseph said the policy would be difficult to implement because
nearly 55 percent of the population lived on less than a dollar a day,
and she foresaw logistical and financial problems in setting up the
feeding programmes countrywide. Approximately 44,000 HIV-positive people
are receiving free ARVs.

Tanzania experienced a severe drought recently, and the United Nations
World Food Programme estimates that some 565,000 people are facing food
shortages. Mobilising enough resources to feed the growing number of
AIDS patients would be extremely difficult.

Critics have warned that persistently poor harvests would force the
government to import food to sustain the programme, adding to the cost.

Joseph also thought it likely that some patients would sell the food to
get money for fuel and water. Some organisations had already backed out
of feeding programmes because many patients, particularly women, were so
poor that they would rather give the food to their children, while their
own health continued to deteriorate.