Reduction of purchases of drugs for HIV-infected people in Russia

Patients who are HIV-positive do not have sufficient funds for expensive antiretroviral therapy, so the main burden of treating such patients is borne by the state. Part of these funds comes through international aid lines - the UN, WHO, the Red Cross and other international organizations, most of which is provided by the state from the budget.

However, as was the case with rare diseases, the state decided to reduce its expenses in the treatment of HIV-infected patients, placing such patients on the brink of survival. Than it can be dangerous? Without proper treatment, the virus is activated and these patients not only reduce the reserve of their lifespan, but also become more dangerous to others, because the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) inactivated as far as possible by modern medicines poses less threat in terms of transfer from person to person, rather than an active infectious agent in the body of the carrier.So such a short-sighted step actually kills not only patients who already have a virus, but also puts the healthy population of the country at risk.

The program for helping HIV patients for 2016 is supposedly reduced by 10%. It is possible that these funds can be allocated at the end of the year, when they will close the budget, including health care, but if this money is found and not allowed for allegedly urgent needs, which our state has become too much in recent times (it's a pity only to own citizens that these expenses do not apply).

In Russia, according to the AIDS Center, there are now 1.3 million people infected with HIV, of whom 850,000 were identified. The coverage of treatment, according to the Ministry of Health, is 37% of those on the register. That is, the problem is more urgent than ever, and even a small percentage of the total number of people who want to deprive them of proper medical care. Thus, the registration and identification of such patients that can completely refuse to register and be examined at all are put under attack, because there will be no advantages to the status of a patient registered according to the rules, but the losses in case of the dissemination of this information are quite serious.

Given that the main mode of transmission of infection recently from injecting drug users has passed to the sexual one, then a large stratum of the young and active population of the country will be in danger. Such a solution to the problem can not be called adequate, because it carries a loss of public health (and individual patients too). Humanistic and image losses of the state are also not appreciated by anybody, because leaving HIV and AIDS to the mercy of the sick is typical for backward countries of the third world, and not for the country pretending to be in the sun.