The Global Fund to fight malaria and HIV and Aids has injected an additional $84 million to augment Zimbabwe's dwindling stocks of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs.

The funding would help the government to create buffer stocks of up to six months, authorities said.

In the last three months, thousands of Aids patients were forced to switch their drug combinations after public hospitals ran out of the life prolonging drugs.

Some hospitals were reported to be giving adult patients ARVs meant for children.



On Tuesday, the Global Fund said the latest disbursement would help Zimbabwe to achieve universal access to Aids treatment by the end of 2015.



According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the new disbursement will cover the cost of life-saving ARVs for an additional 10,000 new patients, bringing the number of people on treatment with Global Fund support to 203 440 by the end of the year.



"Part of the new funding will also pay for the creation of a buffer stock of six months of ARVs for all 480,000 adults on treatment in Zimbabwe.



"The buffer stock will provide additional security of supplies of medicines to patients," UNDP said in statement.

The Global Fund is working in 22 districts in Zimbabwe, where an estimated 1.3 million people are living with HIV.



The biggest ARV support is received from the Global Fund and government, through the Aids levy that caters for 100,000 people while the United States supports 80,000 people, British DFID (43 324) and the Expanded Support Programme provides for 23 989 people.



The Global Fund said it had agreed to raise treatment coverage together with the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which is also funding an increase in the number of adults and children on treatment it supports in Zimbabwe, from 80,000 to 171,400.



"These efforts are being closely coordinated with the government of Zimbabwe, which is supporting 124,000 patients on ARV through its innovative AIDS levy initiative, and with the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), which is funding treatment for 35,900 patients," the report added.



These combined efforts, according to the Global Fund will make possible the attainment of universal coverage, which is defined as 80 percent of people in need of treatment.

 

Zimbabwe is expected to surpass that target for the adult population, reaching 85 percent of people in need by the end of the year.