Ivory Coast: HIV-Positive People to Receive Free Antiretroviral Treatment

According to a decree signed by Health Minister Remi Allah Kouadio, effective Aug. 20, antiretroviral treatment for people with HIV/AIDS is now offered free in public health centers in Ivory Coast. The costs of the initiative are largely being borne by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which have respectively allocated $19 million and $7 million for Ivory Coast in 2009-09, said Dr. Toussaint Sibailly, PEPFAR's chief in the country. The government of Ivory Coast is adding $2 million. The program's goal is to treat 77,000 patients in the near term and 104,000 by 2010, Sibailly said. About 4.7 percent of people in the western African nation are HIV-positive, according to a survey from 2005-06.

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