According to an alarming report published by nongovernmental organisation Doctors Without Borders (DWB), 85% of AIDS patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) do not have access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Gina, who waited for two years before she could receive the treatment, considers herself lucky. Many other AIDS patients wait in vain.

by Alice Bafiala, Kinshasa

For 25-year-old Gina (not her real name), it all started in February 2005. “I had strong fevers, constant headaches and diarrhoea. I went to many healthcare centres but still couldn’t figure out exactly what I was suffering from,” she recalls.

Difficult comeback
It was only two years later that Gina learned she was HIV-positive. The young woman was devastated when she received the results of her HIV test in 2007. “It was a big shock for me. I saw it as a death sentence,” she recalls. “The doctor asked us to leave the hospital. He said there was nothing he could do for us. We lost all hope when we couldn’t get any assistance in two other specialised HIV/AIDS care centres due to the shortage of ARV drugs,” adds Gina’s mother who is happy to see her daughter getting back on her feet.

Gina went for a year without proper care or support. She only started receiving antiretroviral treatment in 2009, after she was referred by a family member to a hospital that is funded and managed by Doctors Without Borders.

Inaccessible treatment
Gina’s story is like that of thousands of other Congolese AIDS patients. The number of HIV-positive patients in the DRC is currently estimated at more than one million, 350,000 of whom could benefit from ARV treatment. In most cases, there is virtually no access to treatment. According to DWB, only 44 000 patients are actually receiving treatment, which represents a 14 percent coverage rate. And only one percent of HIV-positive pregnant women are reportedly receiving treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

Gisèle (not her real name), whose treatment came too late, regrets having infected her child when she could have prevented it. “I discovered that I was HIV-positive in 2006 but was told that a treatment was not necessary in my case. I was confident and got back to my old ways. I even believed that I had been miraculously cured. I fell pregnant two years later but my new-born child was always sick,” recounts the 40-year-old woman who only started receiving treatment in 2011. “I was weighing no more than 20 kilograms. With the help of a friend, I managed to find an HIV/AIDS care centre where my child and I received free ARV treatment. Today, my weight has improved to 68 kilograms and my child is well,” she adds.

Paying for free treatment
HIV-positive patients must pay before getting access to free ARV treatment. In a country where two thirds of the population lives on less than one euro a day, poverty can also translate into resignation. “A consultation, with lab results, is required in order to determine which type ARV treatment the patient should receive. And all that is not included in the minimum package provided by the government. All these charges are on the patients and therefore constitute more barriers to accessing ARV drugs, which are officially free of charge,” explains Dr. Maria Mashako from the Kabinda hospital in the capital, Kinshasa.

The future is bleak for many AIDS patients in this Central African country. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is the leading supplier of ARV drugs in the democratic Republic of Congo, has decided to substantially reduce its funding due to the financial crisis. As a result, organisations involved in the fight against AIDS are calling on the government to increase and spend the totality of the seven percent of its healthcare budget earmarked for fighting the pandemic.