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  • Title: Zimbabwe: are the costs of AIDS medical care affordable?
    Author: Hore R.
    Journal: AIDS Anal Afr; 1993; 3(2):6-8. PubMed ID: 12318404.
    Abstract:
    It is expensive to treat the sequelae of HIV infection. 10,551 cases of AIDS have been reported cumulatively in Zimbabwe over the period 1987-91, of which 4557 were identified in 1991. An estimated 900,000 of Zimbabwe's population of 12 million are infected with HIV. In this young population rife with sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis, 64.98% of 43,424 patients tested for HIV in 1991 were HIV-seropositive; 64.33% of those positive suffered from AIDS-related complex. This paper considers the cost of paying for those infected and sick with AIDS in a medical aid society. The societies are 3-tiered as follows: a low cost Primary Scheme, a General Scheme with comprehensive benefits except for private hospitalization, and a Private Hospital Scheme with a full range of benefits including the cost of private hospitalization up to the level of a 2-bed ward. 11,366 beneficiaries of the society under consideration have been serologically tested for HIV since 1990. Patient HIV status is, however, confidential, thus forcing the estimation of HIV-positive cases. 7389 may be assumed to be infected according to the Ministry of Health estimation that an average 64.98% of patients tested are HIV-positive. Claims expenditures for the provisionally identified cases would total $9,993,210 with the average cost/case of $1345 for a mix of new and advanced cases. The society could expect to spend $15,203,475,00 on ARC alone. Despite the high direct costs of health costs of health care for people with AIDS, medical societies in Zimbabwe can neither practically nor morally avoid meeting them. It is therefore imperative that either the direct health care costs of AIDS be drastically reduced or alternative means of protecting the societies are found.
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