Success in South Africa
According to UNAIDS in 2011, an estimated 5.5m people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa – the highest level of any country. In the same year it is estimated that 310,000 South Africans died of AIDS-related causes. Prevalence is 17.8 percent among those aged between 15-49 with younger adults particularly affected.
AIDS Ark started in South Africa in 2002, with the invaluable assistance of Cape Town-based Andrew Satow. Initially, we funded antiretroviral medicines (ARVs) for 23 patients. One sadly died but the others regained their health and now have places on government ARV programmes.
“Without doubt, access to ARVs funded by AIDS Ark kept these patients alive from 2002 to 2006 when we were finally able to secure places for them on new government-funded ARV programmes. The support from AIDS Ark unquestionably spearheaded the formation of the new programmes.” —Dr Jenni Pitt, Desmond Tutu HIV Research Centre, Cape Town (2004).
It is estimated there are 1.9 million AIDS orphans in South Africa where one or both parents are deceased, and that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is responsible for half of the country’s orphans. There were an estimated 330,000 under-15s living with HIV in 2009, a figure that has almost doubled since 2001.
At the start of 2012 AIDS Ark started funding a new approach to combatting HIV. We are now funding a programme to help children with HIV who are under the care of the Desmund Tutu HIV Foundation in Cape Town. Several of their younger patients born with HIV have become resistant to medications and are failing their first-line ARV medical regimen. As a result of their first-line failure, the prognosis for these children was poor. AIDS Ark is intervening by providing funding for these children to receive genotype resistance blood tests at the cost of £177 per child.
Funding for these tests would otherwise not have been available. With the results from these tests, half these children were then able to be put on alternative effective ARV medications which are freely available from the South African government. The other half of these children needed ARV medicines which have only just come out in the US and which are not yet available in South Africa. Fortunately, with these genotype test results, the US manufacturer of these new medicines has agreed to supply these medicines free of charge to these children in South Africa.
As a result of this success, AIDS Ark are funding genotype resistance blood tests for a further 13 children at the Red Cross Hospital in Cape Town, children who have also become resistant to their first-line ARVs. All of these children have since been placed on new drug regimens. Again, half are able to receive medicines available from the South African government and the rest of the children are being supplied medicines free of charge from the US manufacturer.
We are very excited by this effective new way of leveraging AIDS Ark donations to help save lives and the massive impact that we promote with this procedure. We hope to expand genotype resistance programmes moving forward.
