Cape Town - Additional allocations for HIV and Aids have been made in the 2013/14 Budget to offset decreased funding from the United States, it was revealed on Wednesday.
According to the 2013 Budget review tabled in the National Assembly, the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief programme had been contributing roughly R4bn per year towards HIV and Aids and tuberculosis.
However, this amount was likely to decrease by 50% over the next five years.
As a result, R100m had been allocated in 2014/15 and R384m in 2015/2016 to partly offset the decreases.
In total, the national health department had budgeted R10.9bn for HIV and Aids.
There was an additional allocation of R800m for scaling up antiretroviral treatment in 2015/2016.
An estimated 1.7 million people infected with HIV and Aids received antiretroviral medication in 2012.
Mother-to-child transmission of HIV was projected to reduce from 3.5% to 2% in 2013/2014.
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