Extra R590.4m to mitigate PEPFAR withdrawal

FINANCE Minister Enoch Godongwana has allocated an additional R590.4 million to support health services affected by the withdrawal of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding.

- THEOLIN TEMBO

PEPFAR-funded HIV organisations receiving grants from the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, had received letters in February alerting them that their grants had been terminated.

In May, the Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, said that the country has 5.9 million people on ART (Antiretroviral Therapy), and that mother-to-child transmission has reduced dramatically.

“We have reduced death from HIV and concomitantly reduced the deaths from TB. When we started this programme, we needed R3.5 billion; today we spent R46.8 billion, of which R7.9 billion was from PEPFAR,” he said.

In July, he announced that the National Treasury released R753 million, which was divided as follows: